There are many such services. Not all of them place such heavy emphasis on the assumption that calls to geographic numbers are "free".

This thread belongs in the "Call providers" section of the forum, where it could be useful to start a thread listing all of the services that operate in this way. Because of the nature of the service there is little to distinguish them. Choosing which to use is simply a matter of selecting who you want to make money out of calls that may cost you nothing.

It should be remembered that all calls to all 0808 80 and some other 080 numbers are offered without charge by some or all mobile companies. Calls to these numbers should never be routed through the third parties if a charge is paid for calling geographic numbers.

NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 30^th, 2009 at 6:52pm:

The 0808 80 range is reserved for charity helplines under a scheme administered by the Telephone Helplines Association. The mobile companies waive their charges as a goodwill gesture. As a commercial service, the RAC breakdown service would not qualify to use a number from this range.

It is open for breakdown services to negotiate with the mobile companies to waive charges for calls to their numbers in return for an appropriate consideration. (DWP is currently involved in such negotiations.)

One must be astonished that there was no offer to call back - 1) Automatically once joining the queue to speak to an agent, 2) Immediately on speaking to the agent, 3) Once the agent knew that there would be a further wait whilst information was being retrieved.

By tying up deals with car companies and banks etc., competition on level of service may be disappearing from the breakdown service market. The days of proud membership of the fiercely rivalless "Club" or "Association" are sadly gone.

I am sure that many readers are gripped by the thrilling adventure story and have been left hanging on what I understand to be called a "bong bong bong bong" moment. Were any axes murdered? Was the petrol station run by a creepy old man who offered a cup of tea in his back parlour and introduced his beautiful daughter? Did a RAC breakdown truck tow the car away before it could be repaired? Have Toyota switched to one of the others, or will we be updated on the campaign to get them to do so?

The AA emergency breakdown number is 0800 887 766. They also provide 0121 275 3746. I think this has been mentioned elswhere.

Barbara wrote on Dec 30^th, 2009 at 7:50pm:


Barbara,

I have been a member over the years of the AA, RAC and Green Flag and always found Green Flag immeasurably better than the other two for speed of assistance arrival and always sending a Recovery capable vehicle and not just a patrol van.  However as a Toyota owner I am entitled to top level RAC membership with Home Start, Relay, overnight hotel acommodation in the event of a breakdown and full European cover for only £55 a year.  This is why for the last seven years I have belonged to the RAC via Toyota's discount plan.  In general I have found the RAC excellent up to yesterday (much better than the AA who alway offer shabby slow service on even the simplest call at the most favourable time of day) but they seem to have completely melted down over the xmas period and seem unwilling to recall call centre and breakdown staff from xmas holidays to cope with the cold weather no matter how adverse the impact on their customers.  Also one must now remember that they have been taken over by that bunch of Sir Fred Goodwinesque Money Grubbers known as the Aviva Group (who I have see just ditched advertising car insurance under the Norwich Union brand in favour of their own corporate colours after several years of its nauseating "quote me happy" or "quote me in India as I always found it to be" campaign).

I already had a nightmare experience with the AA 10 years ago when my car was left stranded on a muddy bank on the edge of a country road in freezing conditions and from it happening at 11pm the AA could not provided a patrol vehicle to recover me off the muddy bank (wheels spinning hopelessly) until 6am the following morning.  I might have died from hypothermia if a passing motorist had not agreed to run me home (about four miles away) at around 1.30am when it became obvious the AA could not attend for many more hours.  I have resolved never to become a member of the AA again.

NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 30^th, 2009 at 9:10pm:

If the operators of these "emergency services" agree with this description of their service then they would doubtless be in a strong position to negotiate with the mobile providers to arrange waiver of charges. Alternatively they would recognise that the importance of the service that they offer to their members would warrant a suitable financial arrangement to secure this waiver. Emergency plumbers, roofers, glaziers and all others who attend emergency situations would doubtless wish to do the same.

I see no difference between us on this point. I hold no brief for the THA. Despite my levity in asking for the second installment of the exciting drama, I offer my genuine sympathy for the catalogue of misfortune suffered.

There is the option of automatically capturing the number for a return call (directly from the CLI, or by asking for the number to be keyed in or spoken) if there is a lengthy time to answer. I do find it hard to believe that an emergency service agent would not take a number and offer to call back immediately to someone in an emergency situation with credit running out. This suggests that the RAC does not see itself as an emergency service.

The idea of a separate class of 080 numbers that are free to caller from mobiles as well as landlines has been discussed in this forum before. It is perhaps shameful that it has not been in existence for some time. The only good reason I can think of for this is a lack of demand. Perhaps there are very few organisations that are keen to pick up the cost of all incoming calls from mobiles. If there are such organisations, then I would be delighted to assist them in lobbying Ofcom to provide them with what they want. It seems a little pointless to lobby for a facility that nobody actually wants to use.

I am expecting DWP to make an announcement shortly. This may help to kick off the public debate.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 30^th, 2009 at 7:27pm:


There was no such offer.

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There was no such offer.

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There was no such offer and after I was placed unilaterally on hold by the call centre worker there was no way to exit from hold except by hanging up.

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RAC is now part of the dead hand of the Aviva Group.  The people who brought you the Norwich Union "Quote Me Happy" or "Quote Me From India" as have always thought of it campaigns.  I see they have finally even canned the once proud Norwich Union insurance brand name in favour of their bland Euro Aviva brand in their latest car insurance tv advertising.  Perhaps just as well as unlike Norwich Union they apparently take almost every single opportunity to refuse to pay a claim whenever they possibly can.

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No and nor was anyone murdered with any axes either.  But I did experience some nervous moments after I rashly pulled out my wallet full of credit cards (to pay for the petrol and petrol can) in front of the two well meaning but potentially scary yokels in their old banger who had gone down to the petrol station to buy beer and cigarettes.  I mean would I stop to investigate a car just because it was parked by the side of the road.  And it did occur to me that if they were going to knock me over the head and steal my car they couldn't do it until I had bought some more petrol for it.

Quote:


No it was rebuilt in to some large shiny standard Esso box shortly after the various other remaining local village petrol stations round here closed down.  The only scary part is the focus on alcohol on a forecourt dedicated to serving cars and the inability of some of the staff to speak more than a handful of words of Bangalor British.

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No the RAC never came out at all and they never called me back, even though when I logged a complaint the next day they did have a CLI based record of the call from my mobile.  No doubt if this had happened at 1am I might have been found frozen in to a block of ice inside my vehicle the following day.

Quote:

Not so far.  My email to the Chairman and Chief Executive of the RAC and/or Aviva with cc to the CEO of Toyota UK and any journalists who cover breakdown recovery service stories is still awaiting preparation.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 31^st, 2009 at 12:56am:


No doubt if the friendly local Surrey hillbillies (no pun intended even though this did all take place in the Surrey Hills area) had not been passing then after another hour or so on the phone I might have found some call centre supervisor who eventually accepted my membership of the organisation but I strongly suspected that given the self inflicted wound of running out of petrol and the general meltdown state of their breakdown service that I might have been left waiting for another couple of hours for a patrol to arrive.  To be honest I was thinking of walking at this stage as there was a pavement, the snow and ice had all melted and it would only have been about 40 minutes walk each way (1 hour 20 minutes in total).  But it was still a very cold night.

SCV I much prefer your creative literary writing mind to your overly detailed written approach to regulatory matters.  Do you perhaps have an untapped ability here that is currently being frustrated by spending its time on such mundane matters as the cost of telephone calls to the NHS and other governmental bodies.

I don't entirely share your pessimism that the current telephone anomalies will still not be corrected under a new government as the actual costs of switching to 03 numbers are very small indeed in governmental budget terms and it is only the percentage of telephone company income that these call charges account for that are large and very significant.  I do think there will be a drastic shakeup of Ofcom and the type of people working there under any other political party in charge of government than this one and that might just do the trick in terms of some of the grosser anomalies.  Also surely once Madame Viviane Reding and her collegues in the EU have finished writing the various wrongs of cross border mobile roaming call and data costs they may perhaps turn their attention to anti competitive behaviour by the telecoms companies in creating covert premium rate call costs for domestic fixed line calls where teh cost of calls is not properly disclosed to the end user.  That is why I feel the OFT has a major role it is in dereliction of on telephone call costs since its duties in terms of preventing widespread misleading price indications by telecoms companies are consistently not being carried out.