NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 20
th, 2008 at 1:57pm:
derrick,
Interestingly I see that your remedy on this matter is actually listed on the top left of the same newspaper page where there is an advert from the Advertising Standards Authority.
As I'm sure you are no doubt well aware as a longstanding forum member it is against ASA rules to make claims that any 084 or 087 prefixed phone number is "local rate" or "national rate" and doubly so with numbers not starting 0845 or 0871 where there never ever was even a historic link with local rate or national rate. It is also against local trading standards guidance indicating that claims 084 numbers are local rate constitute a possible offence under Part III of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
See
www.herefordshire.gov.uk/business/trading_standards/detail.aspx?id=180805&classi...0843 is just an extension of 0844 and Ofcom clearly allowed the allocation of these additional codes on numbers that look like 0845 and 0870 (but never ever had any local or national rate connection) to try to make it as easy as possible for their chums in the telcos to continue to peddle the local/national rate lie while pretending that they disapproved of this happening. If this was not the case then Ofcom would clearly have issued codes in another number range such as 04 where are there are no such historic local /national rate connotations.
You can complain about this advert being in contravention of ASA rules at
www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/ If you look at my OP you will see that I was asking for clarification as to the number before making my complaint to the ASA, that complaint is already on its way to the ASA with the relevant contraventions and points re Trading Standards, ASA, COI, Ofcom guidelines/rules being broken, and the CPA part III.
It was just that I had not heard of the 0843 number and if it was not in existence it would have appeared a typo error and maybe was meant to be 0845, even so the same complaint would have been made by me for an 0845 number.
The ASA have had several complaints from me regarding this "newspaper" and I gather they have had other issues with it.
Also your link to the Herefordshire site, whilst being relevant in some points, is out of date as it states; - "Prices checked 15 August
2005 – check supplier for current position." over 3 years ago, so if sent as a link to someone, they could quite rightly dismiss it.