See http://www.postoffice.co.uk/price-changes for full details.

Calls to 0843/0844 and 0871/0872 become expensive

"To help simplify charges calls to numbers beginning with 0844 or 0843 will now all cost 7p a minute regardless of time of day and calls to numbers beginning with 0871 and 0872 will all cost 15p a minute regardless of time of day."

Ian G wrote on Feb 20^th, 2014 at 7:07am:

Virgin Mobile is a "main" operator because it uses T-Mobile numbers.

Three did used to have higher termination charges on account of the fact that it was a newer and smaller operator, but that stopped being so in 2011. Judging by the fact call rates are 21.99ppm during the daytime and 16.44ppm during evenings and weekends I can only think that news of these changes have not made it to those who set the retail prices, which is odd.

Dave wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2014 at 1:41am:


Dave,

Virgin Mobile is just a Mobile Virual Network Operator (MVNO - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator) that like any other large MVNO (Tesco Mobile being the only really large MVNO apart from Virgin Mobile) that happens to use the TMobile network to provide its calls.  Of course its number block allocations comes from within the number blocks allocated to TMobile just as Tesco Mobile (another large MVNO) uses number block allocations from O2, who it uses to provide its MVNO's mobile calls.

So Dave please explain exactly how you  think Virgin Mobile is different from most other MVNOs or in particular from Tesco Mobile in that regard????

bigjohn wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2014 at 5:44pm:



bigjohn,

In your above Price Rises list in your latest post (but not in your original post back in Feb where they were included) you have unfortunately missed the biggest, most unjustified and most disgraceful price change by P O Homephone.  Namely the fact that many dial thru services to overseas landlines and mobiles that used to cost only 1p per minute on 0844 or from 6p per minute on 0871 have now had their prices hiked to an extortionate 7p and and 15 per minute respectively, even though the underlying dial thru call suppliers have not increased their prices at all.

I am however still very grateful to you for making your latest post as it has alerted my to these outrageous 0844 and 0871 price rises being pushed through with effect from 15th April and before I had made any calls at the new exorbitant hiked prices.

I had been making a lot of calls to mobiles in Spain with Auracall and others listed at http://callchecker.moneysavingexpert.com/intcallchecker/at only 1p per minute before the price hike in connection with a project I am doing on upgrading the communal wifi system at our apartment in Spain.  Thankfully your latest post alerted me to the new disgraceful pricing by Greedy - P O Homephone before I made a single call.

However I will now have to start using Voip based services to do so.  This involves lower call quality in many cases but I now have no alternative given P O Homephone's disgusting and totally abusive behaviour.

This outrageous racketeering on the cost of 1p per minute 0844 dial thru numbers really needs to be exposed and fully investigated by a program like You and Yours.  I am quite sure that if it was revealed that P O Homephone was making a 600% profit margin on its supply cost that they would then be embarrassed in to reverting to the old prices just like BT Payphones division was when they were exposed for having increased their minimum calling charge from a BT Payphone with a credit card from an existing card surcharge (compared to cash) of 100% at £1.20 per call to a totally unbelievable £6.50 per call.

Why do these greedy marketing managers at these companies keep on behaving in these disgusting ways.  Presumably they know it is because useless and supine Ofcom and the useless QUANGO that has replaced the OFT and the Competition Commission will do precisely nothing about it.

I have also posted in the MSE Call Checker Discussion Thread at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2937508&page=18 to point out there that the calling rates in their International Call Checker for P O Homephone are now completely and utterly wrong and out of date as of 15th April.