Hello, my name is Barry Issell from SayNoTo118800.co.uk

In response to the justified huge public backlash against 118800, we have decided to take serious counter-measures against the the new mobile directory service by launching a new service against them - http://www.saynoto118800.co.uk

SayNoTo118800.co.uk is a non-profit organisation and has been created with the sole aim of protecting the privacy conscious mobile phone owner.

We have information on good authority that 118800 will be re-launching again within the next 4-6 weeks.

Our site was to remain dormant until the relaunch of 118800, however we have just learnt that they have in fact had further venture capital injected.
This is resulting in more personal mobile number information being collated. The rebrand exercise is currently being carried out by PR firm BISS Lancaster who are evidently doing very well out of this whole affair.
Either way, the end product will be the same - a gross invasion of privacy.  

Our service will go some way to help the consumer but not without a concerted effort - hence why we have come into the fore in advance of the proposed 118800 re-launch.

A comment on our youtube channel a couple of days ago from 118800directory shows the total arrogance of this organisation and a phone call to them today was met with a similar tone.

There are still many millions of people who have so far been lucky enough to have not had their personal details 'bought' by 118800 - this is however changing as we speak.
We cannot stop 118800 buying personal details mobile phone information - but 118800 can be fed with 'masked' Safe telephone numbers instead.

Note:- The 'Safe' Numbers CANNOT be texted to by 118800 - a masked Safe number will never receive a text or be able to be contacted by 118800 - ever. Therefore rendering the purchased contact information totally useless.

All the consumer has to remember, when they fill in that questionnaire, tick that box, apply for that credit card etc.. is to give the Safe Number !

A lot of personal free time has been put into this 'counter-measure' by numerous 'concerned' individuals and I would like to thank everyone who is helping with the campaign and it's promotion.
Our team of volunteers are on the road over these coming months 'spreading the word', so please keep an eye on our Youtube channel to see what we are actively doing out there in the 'real world'.
For example, tommorow we will be flying the large 'SayNoTo118800' Zeppelin over the busy A1M Motorway - weather permitting !

We would certainly welcome any comments (and more volunteers of course )

Kind regards

Barry Issell

saynoto118800.co.uk
Middle Offices
66-68 St.Loyes Street
Bedford MK40 1EZ

Hello Dave and Barry, Im Neil and I work for 118800.co.uk

Thanks for your discussions on 118800.  Dave you are indeed correct we don’t give out mobile numbers. 118800 is a service for connecting people that know each other’s name and address.  In the majority of cases it will be a friend or colleague who has lost your number or doesn’t have it on them and needs to get in touch.   If you are contacted it will be by 118800 calling to announce the name of that person, or sending a text message with the name and number of the person trying to get in touch. It will then be up to you whether you want to speak to them or not.

Please watch a video of how the service works http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNgLWB123JA

Or visit the website for more information http://www.118800.co.uk/ss2

Thankyou for your time

Neil

Neil, as an employee of the firm perhaps you can answer my question: how are you going to ensure, when you text a person, that they are not abroad?  If they are abroad they risk incurring a hefty fee to receive a text from the UK and, certainly on my phone, you do not know the sender of the text until you open it by which time you've incurred the fee.   I really resent this as it is highly likely that the person would be someone from whom I would not want to hear (even some relatives can sometimes fall into that category!), I give my mobile no only to those whom I wish to have it, if I receive a call from them while abroad, I know who is calling before I answer.  If anyone in that category were without my number (I do take the point about being out, having mislaid no or phone with phone book) such as one of my adult children, they would be more likely to phone each other to get my number.  Hence, the only people likely to try your service to get in touch with me would be people from whom I had consciously withheld my number.   

On this point, is your service going to be available to commercial organisations?   If so I can see there being further abuse, for example when you are asked to supply details on a form following purchase or for a guarantee, I never supply my mobile number but could the company contact you saying they need to contact me?   I know I wouldn't have to respond but it would be a nuisance (and a cost if abroad).   

Why can you not have a purely opt-in service whereby those who are happy for this go online to register their details with you?

How do we know that 'saynoto118800.co.uk' isn't a scam?
I can find no Privacy Policy on your site. Isn't that a breach of data protection legislation?

You're collecting loads of mobile phone numbers which many disreputable sales organisations would happily buy. How do we know you're not selling them.

You say you collect no personal address info but you're asking for donations with all sorts of personal info attached including bank details! And what are the donations for any way!!?

And don't 'safe numbers' cost callers 50p or more per minute.....I couldn't find that anywhere on your site.

I think you have some serious questions to answer before  you get us behind your cause.

Thanks

Fay.

Hi guys, Barry here.

Sorry I'm not a super fast typer Fay !! Also, it doesn't help when you spent ages typing a response then hit the wrong button !  

Well, what a great response and let's go through these here and some which you haven't seen.

Firstly and foremost we are a totally non-profit making organisation and most definately not a 'Scam'.

We are currently sharing an office in Bedford with an Estate agent, a mortgage advisor and a care home operator.
Please feel free to 'google' us -

66-68 St.Loyes Street
Bedford
MK40 1EZ

Anyone who wants to pop by for a cup of coffee and a chat and see what is going on behind the scenes is most welcome.
Nothing too interesting - just myself, Sarah and Steve opening emails, sending over number mapping requests and then sending the new Safe numbers back to the person who asked for it.
If you do pop by, please park in the multi-story behind and press the buzzer with my name on it - B.Issell.
No offshore bank accounts to peruse i'm afraid, just our paypal donation account - saynoto118800@hotmail.co.uk

For me the fun is out on the road. Just today we launched the www.saynoto118800.co.uk Zepellin over the A1 motorway at St.Neots in Cambridgeshire. And what an absolutlely amazing public response - car horns tooting, thumbs up etc.etc. what a buzz. check out our Youtube channel

We are working totally off donations and volunteers - no £17 million investment.

Web design and server space - FOC
Zeppellin loaned FOC- banners and helium £300
Advertising trailer loaned FOC - banners £300

As we are now starting to pick up momentum, it has been decided that we should move to larger campaign offices.

We've had a load of emails and PM's come in and I would like to answer them publicly where possible.

Jon says "There is a quite a lot wrong with 118 800, but spreading lies with scare tactics about paedophiles and murderers with silly in irrelevant questions and answers is the stuff of the lunatic fringe. Who is funding you? (And please don\'t say donations from the public.) Who has a commercial interest in your \'campaign\'? Who is Barry Issell?"

Well Jon, we had a bit of a heated debate in the office about the FAQ's and the 'paedophile' FAQ was actually my idea to give it a bit of 'clout'. I added it at the time not fully thinking it through and accept that this was probably wrong. I will now be removing it from the site (getting the 'I told you so's, as we speak' . I am Barry Issell just a regular guy. Why do you think we are being funded by someone ?

Dave, in response to your question, yes they are 07 numbers and yes it is TOTALLY our intention to flood databases with them. This will ensure that no SMS text contact will ever be received from 118800.

Fay, We do not ask for anyone's bank details for anything. I think you may be thinking of the Paypal account set-up procedure, which I believe does.
We do not take any personal contact details, indeed the site has been designed for the absolute minimum information to be inputted. In fact, you don't even need to put in your name - just the number you require masking and a return email address. Hotmail, yahoo, gmail, we don't care. All we want to do is offer a free of charge counter-measure against 118800.

The cost to call the numbers vary across different network operators. I know that number costs for 07 numbers are available on the OFCOM and PhonePayPlus websites.
The regulations also stipulate that absolutely no revenue from these numbers or normal mobile numbers can be paid over to a 3rd party such as ourselves from a Service Provider such as Vodafone, O2, or whoever. We do not derive any income from these numbers but importantly, they cost us nothing either.
We were using just one service provider, but unfortunately they could not attach the numbers quick enough for us - we are now using 3 different Service providers.

All donations simply go in to the saynoto118800 war chest.

Keep those comments coming !

Kind regards,

Barry Issell

Saynoto118800.co.uk
66-68 St.Loyes Street
Bedford MK40 1EZ

I find it highly implausible that SayNoTo118800 would be renting an office for three people funded just by donations.

saynoto118800 wrote on Aug 6^th, 2009 at 6:42pm:


As far as I can tell, the above is simply not true.

Ofcom state:
Quote:

(source: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/num_070_guide)

Now, "end-user" is the person who owns the final number that is forwarded to, *not* the organisation that manages the personal number.  In other words, I believe it is completely possible that SayNoTo118800.co.uk can legally be given a share of the (significant) extra call charges incurred in calling these numbers.

If that is the case, SayNoTo118800.co.uk should come out and admit it.

From another link:

Quote:

(emphasis added by me, source: http://www.out-law.com/page-8133 - disclaimer, the information in that link may be outofdate, IANAL etc etc.)

Now it is perfectly possible that "Barry Issell" is sincere, but there needs to be a lot more transparency in the nature of their organisation before I personally would trust them.

Thank you for your reply Barry.
My problem remains that I don't see why you and your two colleagues would give up your time, and spend out on advertising campaigns if you weren't receiving remuneration.
I am afraid that visiting your offices would not prove one way or another whether you are connected to the service providers you mention (can you give their names by the way?).

There are altruists in this world, but I am an old cynic, and believe they are outnumbered by people with vested interests .
For example, it could be a nice little money spinner to receive a cut of tens of thousands of calls to these high-cost personal numbers. And if not a cut, what about a kick-back for each number signed up?

For the record, I would have no problem at all with companies that do cold calling getting stung for extortionate rates when calling up your "safe numbers."  I just think there are probably things being unsaid about the nature of your organisation, funding being at the top of the list.

Having visited the two sites I feel substantially more distrusting of www.saynoto118800.co.uk as it has no About Us section but is absolutely desperate to get your name, mobile number and email address right away with no Terms and Conditions stated about how www.118800.co.uk propose to use or store or distribute that information.

If Barry Issell is as wealthy as he claims he is then I find it odd that the only significant hits for him on Google are his posts on our website.  Also if he is an altruist and wants to stop scams then why didn't he come in and tell us how to properly publicise the very altruistic aims of this website that do not involve trying to get anyone to call an 070 number that they are very unlikely to realise is not a proper mobile phone number (itself inherently a scam).  Also how is this 070 number safe when www.saynoto118800.co.uk controls it and has your underlying mobile phone number.

Given the deliberate scam uses to which 070 numbers are always put (and I include Hospedia hospital bedside phones in that category) I find it much more likely that www.saynoto118800.co.uk is the scam use and I also think it is trying to pass itself off to potential users as this website by using a very similar name.  I feel sure that is why its zeppelin balloon mistakenly got the thumbs up from some people who saw it.

I cannot believe a legitimate company would actually base a legitimate business model on trying to directly hurt another company's business idea as the likelihood of being sued for a large amount of money for doing so seems fairly obvious.

I do think this venture by Mr Issell and his colleagues could leave Ofcom with a large amount of egg on its face for scrapping its proposals to move 070 to the 06 number range where the confusion with being a normal mobile call that results from using 070 would be completely avoided.  The fact that Mr Issell shares his premises in Bedford with a few other companies merely tells us he is short of money and that the business is potentially FlyByNight.

Actually I think my next port of call is going to be to alert those at Ofcom responsible for the consultations on 070 numbers to this company's activities.