I see that the unsuitable alternative number has now been removed - well done to the Moderator.

Black marks to the site users who failed to report that an unverified alternative was unsuitable and to the user who proposed an unsuitable alternative in the first place.

One hopes that HMRC will recognise the amount of annoyance caused to all those who do not make calls through BT who are incurring a premium charge, as all callers subsidise the cost of HMRC answering queries (in this case about its own errors). The way in which they express their annoyance is undesireable and fruitless, but one must acknowledge that they have a genuine grievance.

The 0345 alternative for every HMRC 0845 number could readily be brought into use to end this unacceptable practice of charging for complaining and enquiring. 0345 3000 627 would be the alternative in this case. I am sure that this site would contribute greatly to publicity of such a facility, which would not necessarily demand expensive changes to all publicity of telephone numbers. A simple statement, repeated widely, that one may dial 0345 in place of 0845 would do the job for the time being.

In the present financial climate, such pragmatic approaches are exactly what is required. There is no money for a major re-numbering exercise, but the principle of fairness must be applied. The present favouritism towards those who benefit from the uniquely regulated call charges that BT must offer for calls to 084 numbers must be removed. The excessive additional costs (e.g. an additional 40p per minute) imposed on those who have no landline must be removed at a time when all budgets are under pressure.

With the 0845 numbers retained and the 0345 alternative providing access to exactly the same service, BT callers could continue to benefit from low rates without this being at the expense of others.

For those of you who are near an Enquiry Centre (a list of which can be found here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/enq/main.htm) you can call in and use our phones free of charge to call our different departments. You can also save time as well as money because we use speed dials for our most popular departments, such as the HMRC Contact Centre, Tax Credit Office and Child Benefit Office.

That is if you can find one that is open, or that has not been closed down yet.

derrick wrote on Nov 4^th, 2010 at 10:21am:


ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE "If you're calling from abroad please telephone: +44 135 535 9022"

If you drill down through their website beyond http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/enq/main.htm which is a poor link    
you get to somewhere else i.e put in a location e.g. your POSTTOWN you get a map with the nearest enquiry offices(5)
on the left is a link "find a specialist office" http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/menus/officesmenu.htm a much more useful link  
you then get to their contact us page http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kbroker/hmrc/contactus/start.jsp an even more useful link  
the "find your tax office" link http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kbroker/hmrc/locator/locator.jsp?type=1
- the type=1 clause means individual (0=corporate 2=employers)
entering location info here will get you to http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/enq/index.htm

Drilling around the HMRC site is a pain/funny when I use my local POSTTOWN and I always get presented with between 4 and 7 alternative villages (with populations in the low hundreds) when my POSTTOWN and 1 of the two National HMRC (ex-IR) collection computer centres i.e. Accounts Offices have the SAME PostTown (population in the tens-of-thousands) and the physical distance is less than that to the local telephone exchange  
- mind you the local city is worse with 9 to 13 alternatives