Have you tried using one of the alternative 0330 numbers ?
to see if they charge for that.

http://www.lycatalk.co.uk/en/rates

They can charge you for  calls to dial-through or calling card access numbers even if they are geographic numbers,as can any other supplier.That one must have have flagged up as getting a lot of traffic.

One way around it is to use someone like www.localphone.com where your allocated your own geographical numbers pointed at the target numbers. So it keeps you below radar.

There was, quite a few years ago, a look-up service on BT's website. I'm not aware of one now, although I appreciate that it wouldn't have helped you.

CJT-80 wrote on Feb 13^th, 2014 at 5:18pm:

Indeed.

Your compaint is one that you dialled this number before the introduction of the charges and that you should therefore have been notified of them.

blutak wrote on Feb 15^th, 2014 at 6:53pm:


Try sending an email to Libby Barr, CEO of BT Retail, as listed at :-

http://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=12034

If you point out that BT had never previously excluded calls to this number from their from call packages and that if it is going to do so it surely has to write to any customers affected in advance or alternatively play an announcement to a caller telling them that calls to this number are not part of an inclusive calling plan then you may well get somewhere.

They may listen if you in particular make it clear that now you have been alerted to the hidden premium rate charge you will not be calling this number in future and you would haves stopped calling it straight away if you had been advised on the day it happened that the call rate had been vastly increased or rather was no longer part of your call plan.

You might also want to threaten (in a polite way) that you may have to take this matter to the Telecommunciations Ombudsman (see http://www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html) if you reach deadlock with BT on this matter and they do not refund the call charges to you.  An investigation by the Telecommunications Ombudsman is likely to cost BT several hundred pounds (it will not cost you anything) and BT may well also not want an Ombudsman adjudication on their dubious practice of excluding certain 01/02/03 numbers from their Anytime call packages as opposed to the more normal and accepted practice of setting a "Fair Use" cap on the maximum number of minutes per month of calls you can use under the Anytime call plan.

Worth a short I would have thought if you feel strongly enough on the matter.  BT can't just change the calling rate to a number without letting their customers know in advance this will be the case so they can alter their actions accordingly.  Can you imagine the fuss if a restaurant or supermarket tried on the same kind of practice with customers.......

Customer Service Advisers just follow the party line (especially at BT where they are given almost no discretion) so you will only get the matter properly looking in to by writing to BT Retail's Managing Director where the buck usually stops being passed.

blutak wrote on Feb 17^th, 2014 at 4:58pm:


This shocking practice of charging customers a completely different rate for a product from the one that seems to be advertised and changing the price of the product the consumer is using without telling them beforehand seems to all be too common in the telecoms industry but almost unknown anywhere else than in the land of Pay cable and satellite television.

BT was also caught out only 10 days ago on BBC Radio You & Yours for having increased the minimum cost of a phone call from a BT Payphone using a credit card from £1.20 to £6.50 while the minimum cash fee was 60p.  Under pressure from You & Yours and Ofcom they announced an an embarassing U-Turn and that they would be returning to the old £1.20 charge and refunding customers.

What is so shocking is that it is always BT that is up to these unscrupulous practices including of course having hiked the cost of landline phone rental 150% over 10 years when inflation has been only 50% whilst they also have a new income source from flogging monthly broadband rental on the same line.  Not to mention despicable practices like their Connection Fee at 15p per call instead of 5p minimum charge 10 years ago.

In my view if BT is going to bring in a charge like this where it did not exist before it should advise someone like you that the practice will be changing and tell you what your charges might be in the next quarter if you go on calling the number.  However to make this change silently behind your back is totally outrageous.

I am fighting precisely the same kind of battle with Orange Spain as reported at http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1380832616/0 over having been charged 15.4 Euros per minute to call a UK 03 number that I had every reason to expect would be charged at 0.01 EUR per minute, just as calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers are from the Orange SIM Mundo tariff.  And nowhere does Orange Spain advertise that they consider UK 03 numbers to be Premium Rate.  Not to mention Ofcom GC17 specifically saying that they aren't and can't be Premium Rate.

Good luck with your battle and let us know how you get on.