Remember that 0800 numbers are not free from a mobile.

There are some who would treat those who use 0800 numbers to tout for business with suspicion.

To some it looks a bit too eager. Also, those who spend money on freephone numbers and flashy advertising to get people through the door have to recover it in their prices.

On anything but a very low value transaction, the difference between a 0800 number and an "ordinary" number is fairly insignificant.

It is the insult of being charged for making an enquiry on a revenue sharing number that stings.

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 27^th, 2009 at 11:53am:

Indeed it does. If so simple a gesture is sufficient to cause consumers to suspend suspicion that is otherwise applied under quite different circumstances then this opens the door for all manner of deception. Doubtless many users of mobile phones note this awareness and respond positively. Those who pay for calls on BT residential tariffs may fail to recognise that those offering 0845 numbers, rather than geographic, can be called more cheaply.

There are doubtless many GPs who did not treat NEG with suspicion because they offered a "free" telephone system.

If the world were made up of good guys and bad guys who could be readily identified by their choice of telephone number or modest gestures of apparent generosity, then life would be so much easier. We share condemnation of the misuse of revenue sharing numbers, I do not share the view that this is a meaningful indicator of the general character of the organisation responsible.

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 27^th, 2009 at 3:08pm:

I fail to see how not considering the use of revenue sharing numbers as an indicator of the organisation's general character as implying that all those who use them are not doing it simply because they can get away with it. 

The more I read the rubbish from GPs and the BMA the more I think that the minority who use 084 numbers consider their budgets before the first principle of the NHS that it should be free at the point of need.

Dave wrote on Feb 27^th, 2009 at 3:22pm:


Indeed.  And so it also proved with NHS Direct who were prepared to rack up substantial legal costs and waste lots of the time of their senior staff to defend the right of their organisation to continue to rip the public off for their phone calls to receive medical advice.

In my view the tiny number of doctors practices who were genuinely conned in to using 084 have in the main already switched back to geographic numbers because the real cost of breaking the contract is very small in terms of the total cost of operating a GP's surgery.  The much larger percentage of GPs surgeries who were genuinely horrified about the idea of such anti customer behaviour have instead immediately showed NEG and their ilk the door.

One typically finds that any GP practice using these numbers is fully signed up to the con and will defend it to the hilt with all the standard untruths about 084/7 number use and also generally has an attitude that "well everyone else is at it so why shouldn't we be" and that "patient must just do as they are told and it is not for mere patients to query how we choose to do things".