NFH wrote on Dec 20^th, 2013 at 10:50am:


This basically covers ALL banks and building societies.. and also Insurance providers (who just love the use of 084 numbers for ALL of their contacts... sometimes including the sales call...)

How typical...

Regulation 6 exists because the regulations in general are inappropriate (due to the nature of the type of transaction), because the equivalent effects are achieved by other regulations deriving from another Directive or, as in the case of Financial Services, the issues covered are dealt with quite differently - potentially more strictly - both by EU Directives and by national legislation.

HM Treasury was invited to consider bringing in parallel regulations for the Financial Services sector to cover the single issue of contact telephone numbers. Fear of being seen to be "gold-plate" a EU Directive was probably one of the primary reasons for this invitation being declined.

Attention has been turned towards getting the FCA to add identical requirements to its regulations, as it is perfectly competent to do, without specific legislation. It has so far committed to consider this. Given that two banking groups and one insurance company have already committed to drop 084/087 numbers, it must be likely that the actual change we seek will be seen across the board.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 20^th, 2013 at 1:08pm:

I might have been wrong, but Which did have a massive campaign on this specific exemption with tens of thousands of signatures on their petition. They claimed victory for themselves, although I have no doubt that other pressure groups, including this one, made a large contribution too.

NFH wrote on Dec 20^th, 2013 at 1:59pm:

Which? did indeed collect many email addresses to add to their database, mailing out a message with an implicit invitation to subscribe (direct marketing without consent, under the terms of PECR #20). The actual terms of the petition were not directly specified - it was about "putting a stop to costly customer helplines".

I imagine that nobody in government would be surprised to learn that people would prefer helplines to be less, rather than more, costly for them to call. It is an open question as to whether people want businesses to be stopped from offering helplines, because they are costly to the business and therefore lead to higher prices. (I can assure readers that no business offering a helpline on a 084/087 number makes a net profit from the activity, in isolation from other activities.)


I understand that the actual submission to BIS by Which? (in response to sight of the draft regulations) was a list of passenger transport companies. This may may have duplicated the content of a number of other submitted lists (at least one of which had been published twelve months earlier), as no effort was made to co-ordinate research or submissions with other parties.

Many others engaged in the BIS round-table session, at which the issues were thrashed out, shared information in advance and demonstrated an understanding of the issues, participating in group discussion. Richard Lloyd claims to have had a private meeting with the Minister (or should that be, boasts about having privileged access denied to others).

As many of the relevant exchanges were private it is not possible to detail the representatives of the passenger transport industry who argued for its inclusion, or the precise role taken by various parties in helping the officials and the Minister to make the right decision.



Just for the record, "this forum" is not a pressure group - it is an open public forum where issues are discussed. It is part of a website that is supported by advertising and cannot therefore offer any formal view on any issue without suffering a conflict of interest, regardless of the difficulty of reflecting a common position that that encompasses the views of all contributors. I represent "the fair telecoms campaign" and engage in work on this issue in that role.


As the campaigning efforts of Which? are now conducted under the brand of a commercial publication and membership organisation, I believe that it should be a little more careful about what interests it may claim to represent. The libertarian, or even anarchistic, nature of its statement of purpose, quoted below, may cause those with different political philosophies to treat some of its declared objectives with extreme suspicion.

Quote:

NFH wrote on Dec 21^st, 2013 at 12:37pm:



Out of interest how can "we" the consumer prove this point: A trader must not charge consumers, in respect of the use of a given means of payment, fees that exceed the cost borne by the trader for the use of that means.


How would we know their costs? That is something that would need to be investigated...

Surely now that CAB is a Dept. of Government however thin the link, it should abide by the rules that include government depts that have funding by Taxpayers however small, they are not a sole charity now although not paying volunteers, and a % of running costs are funded by Taxpayers.

They should be persued and made to toe the line, in the media.

NFH wrote on Dec 21^st, 2013 at 8:34pm:

All three of us are in agreement.

This is not my territory, so I am reluctant to go into detail. I would however expect that those interested in the topic will find some reference to the level of surcharges that may be expected amongst the Guidance issued to enforcement bodies, in the appropriate consultation document, or even in the associated impact analysis.

Whilst specific detail would be necessary in the case of an enforcement action, there should be some information to guide a consumer on what sort of case would be worth reporting, or pursuing directly. It may take a little trouble to dig it out, but one might hope that consumer representatives bodies would have done so to assist their clients.