NGMsGhost wrote on Jan 8^th, 2009 at 3:28pm:

Today's Yorkshire Post, page 9. I will post a link when I find the article online. 

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 7:56pm:

Nice idea! That's about the only thing that would get me to sign up for the Anytime plan. I could get the fee back in half a day, then make a packet for the rest of the month!

I presume the usual BT conditions will apply: the call will ony be "free" for an hour, after which one must redial. Let's hope that queue to a call centre doesn't last more than an hour.

Also, what will happen to the prices for those of us not on the Anytime plan? Will the cost of 0845 calls still only be half that of geographical calls?

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 7:56pm:

Two good points here, both suggesting that some people will hear this announcement, and be tricked into spending more one way or another. If people assume 0844 calls are also included, the result could be disastrous.

Dave wrote on Jan 9^th, 2009 at 8:43pm:
If BT doesnt make a loss on 0845 then even allowing a penny or two means other OCPs would be making a profit but then that means Virgin (followed by Sky) that charge extornate rates for calls to 0845/0870 are making an absolute fortune (not including the money they make from "connection" fees).

Source: Yorkshire Post

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/BT-drops-charges-for-some.4860349.jp

BT drops charges for some high-cost numbers

Published Date: 09 January 2009
By John Roberts

TELECOM giant BT is to scrap its charges for 0870 and 0845 numbers at the centre of a row over public services profiting from them.

Calls to these numbers from a BT landline currently costs 5.8p per a minute but from next week they be included free of charge in customers' call packages.

However, campaigners opposed to the use of high-cost numbers dismissed the move as insignificant as it does not apply to 0844 or 0871 numbers – which are used by many GPs.

Organisations using numbers which begin with 0870, 0871, 0844 or 0845 can share the extra revenue made with the calls provider. More than 200 GPs surgeries and three hospitals in Yorkshire have been criticised for using these numbers which can cost significantly more than normal local calls.

BT announced yesterday that it will scrap its charges for all 0870 and 0845 numbers, which will cost the company £24m.

As well as public services, 0870 and 0845 numbers are also regularly used by banks, building societies and insurance firms.

BT said it was the first UK telephone company to make the numbers free, adding that some competitors charged up to 10p a minute for a daytime 0870 call.

However, campaigners say the BT move will have no significant effect as it does not apply to 0844 numbers – used by more than 50 doctor's surgeries in West Yorkshire and Wakefield-based Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust.

The saynoto0870.com group also claim that 0845 numbers will not be free and will continue to create revenue with money paid from an increased BT rental charge instead of an extra charge for each individual call.

Group spokesman Dave Lindsay, of Doncaster, said: "Even for BT customers these calls will not be free. They will only be covered by the increased charge paid for an inclusive package.

"If this announcement is mistakenly used to make use of 0845 numbers appear more acceptable, this will severely disadvantage the poor who are unable to rent a BT landline and have to use pay-as-you-go mobiles to contact NHS Direct and others, and thereby suffer a greater surcharge on top of higher charges for all calls."

John Petter, managing director of BT's consumer business, said: "We know that the public is frustrated by having to pay higher charges for these numbers, even though BT's rates were cheaper than our rivals, so we worked out a way to go further and include calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers in our call packages.

"These numbers are widely used by banks, utilities and even NHS Direct, and our customers spend 30 minutes a month on average calling these numbers. We hope we have taken a sting out of the price of these calls, but also removed one of those irritations that customers believed was an unfair anomaly."

Which? Magazine last year named and shamed companies and public bodies using these numbers.

Now it has renewed calls for high-cost helplines to be scrapped.

The magazine's principal researcher, Ceri Stanaway, said: "Which? has long said that customers should not have to dial expensive numbers to contact customer service and support helplines, and we're pleased to see that 0845 and 0870 numbers will now be included in BT call packages.

"But there will still be lots of people that don't use BT for their phone calls, or BT customers who have to make an 0870 call that isn't covered by a call plan. These people, plus anyone who rings helplines on 0844 or 0871 numbers, will still often be paying far too much for the privilege."

jrawle wrote on Jan 10^th, 2009 at 1:22pm:



Don't think that is how SCV suggested it!

Presumably, for 0845, it'll be 7p 'call set-up fee' + 2p/minute daytime and ½p/minute evenings/nights and, for 0870, it'll be 7p 'call set-up fee' + 6p/minute daytime and 1½p/minute evenings/nights as it is now.

I believe that the huge danger of this move by BT (which none of you seem to have spotted so far) is that it will now very considerably muddy the waters over the need for all public sector organisations who use 0845 and 0870 numbers to replace them with 03 numbers.  For instance one can foresee DVLA, HMRC etc, etc now saying they no longer have any plans to get 03 numbers as most BT customers can call these numbers free of charge if they actually want to by getting the appropriate BT calling plan.

Even though doctors and many important private sector call centres use 0844 and 0871  and not 0845 and 0870 the media seem sufficiently stupid and numerically illiterate to want to be blind about the continued problems here and thus the abusing call centres (including doctors) will just take the line that the whole problem is now solved and so will not get replacement 03 numbers.

I suspect BT's major motive here is actually to further sell its Anytime Call Plan and to make phone customers in non LLU phone areas (where BT's competitors like TalkTalk, Tiscali and Sky cannot offer a very compelling package) consider moving back to BT from CPS and WLR products with competitors to benefit from the free 084 and 087 calls.  I do not see how TalkTalk or Tiscali etc can follow suit in offering these 0845 and 0870 calls free in LLU areas because they are already operating on wafer thing margins of which the very high profit covert premium rate 084/7 revenue stream is surely a vital part.  If they include 084/7 calls then TalkTalk for instance would have to considerably raise the price of its bundled broadband and phone call packages.

From the point of view of this campaign I unfortunately see this move by BT not as a great victory for our campaign (the great victory would have been all 084/7 calls being pushed on to 09 with full disclosure and a complete ban on their use in the public sector) but as a way for BT to make the media ever more confused about what our campaign is about.  Then meanwhile other parts of BT will seek to reduce the cost of its free 0845 and 0870 calls by continuing to migrate as many large call centres as it possibly can (that it provides the lines for) to 0844 and 0871.

This move by BT is very dangerous for the successful rollout and implementation of 03 numbers and of course all the while more and more calls are moving to 0844 and 0871 numbers where the ripoff will continue, even for BT customers.  But one can see how the woolly thinking at NHS Direct is likely to now go regarding the need to replace their 0845 number with an 03 phone number following this move by BT.

So the great danger is the public and the media may now wrongly think the 084/7 scam has ended and then call them with impunity on their mobiles only to find the scam very much alive and kicking.  Meanwhile many important public sector call centres using 0845 or 0870 may shelve or put on ice their plans to adopt 03 numbers as a result of BT's move.  So all ways round unfortunately this is not the positive outcome for our campaign that it might at first appear but is instead simply another example of dirty tricks by BT that will make it much harder to bring 084/7 abuses to an early end while making BT look like good guys by hiding from media attention their many other new abuses such as huge per call setup fees for the many customers only on their weekend calls plan..............

BT's apparent lack of consistency in making 0845 and 0870 calls free at certain times for those who take call packages from it on residential landlines while still charging them as being premium rate calls (with a small p) elsewhere is best demonstrated by the very high charges still levied to call 0845 and 0870 numbers from a BT Public Payphone.

BT's own Public Payphone tarriff (see www.serviceview.bt.com/list/public/current/Call_Charges_boo/3545_d0e5.htm#3545-d...) shows that BT charges 19.48p per minute after a 20p connection fee to call an 0844, 0845 or 0870 number while it only charges 1p per minute to call a number starting 01, 02 or 03 on top of its 20p connection fee.  As the minimum call charge from a BT Payphone is 40p this means that 40p buys you only about 63 seconds of call time to an 0844, 0845 of 0870 phone number but 20 minutes of call time to a number starting 01, 02 or 03.  Also once the 20 minutes is up to an 01, 02 or 03 number the call continues at only 1p per minute but to an 0844, 0845 or 0870 number the call will have cost you 19.48p per minute from the 64th second of the call onwards.  So a 20 minute call to an 0844, 0845 or 0870 number from a BT Payphone will cost £4.10 rather than the 40p to a number starting 01, 02 or 03.

It seems bizarre that BT charges precisely the same charges (high though they are) to 0844 on a BT public payphone as they do for 0845 and 0870 but yet on a landline includes the 0845 and 0870 numbers in inclusive call packages but does not include 0844.  This contrasts with BT Payphones where only 0871 numbers are singled out for their higher still near extortion level charge of a whopping 96.7p per minute or £19.55 for a 20 minute phone call.

All of this seems to me to show that BT is not now charging for calls to 084 and 087 prefixed phone numbers from BT public payphones or residential landlines in a way that actually reflects a fair markup on its real underlying costs but is instead either using calls to these numbers either as a massive loss leader (for residential landline call package customers calling 0845 or 0870) or as a source of unfair monopolistic profits that do not in any way reflects its real additional costs in carrying the calls (BT Payphone charges to 0844, 0845, 0870 and especially 0871) compared to calls to geographic phone numbers from those same BT public payphones.

BT's continued abuse of the calling public needing to call 084 and 087 prefixed phone numbers from BT Payphones while they actually charge a lower weekday daytime per minute charge (subject to the 40 minimum call charge) to call 01, 02 and 03 prefixed numbers than on residential landlines (for calls where customers pay per call in the weekday daytime) needs to be challenged as it seems to be based on anti competitive pricing rather than on economics or a fair mark up on the underlying wholesale cost of those 0844, 0845, 0870 and 0871 calls.