Frankly I am not,

perhaps it's worth anyone on here who uses the National Lottery e-mailing them to voice their opinion?

https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/contact-us#get-in-touch

e-mail address on the right hand side.

Ian01 wrote on Jun 28^th, 2015 at 11:54am:


Camelot is regulated by The Gambling Commission, not the FCA.

There could be a case for gamblers being protected from an additional charge that spikes their odds a little. One may however share my view that the capacity to intelligently assess the odds is an essential requirement for anyone who chooses to engage in gambling for profit.

In truth, the whole gambling business unfairly relies on the exploitation of those who cannot judge the odds, or are prepared to give away money in a foolish spirit of carelessness. There is a strong argument that people enjoy engaging in a little foolishness - so why spoilt their fun!

bigjohn wrote on Jun 28^th, 2015 at 6:29pm:

Sadly the chain from DCMS to Camelot passes through the National Lottery Commission, part of the Gambling Commission. NDPB's (aka Quangoes) must have some independence from the department that they are related to.

The Guidance has been very effective within its limited scope - essentially 100%. We obviously wish that the scope could have been much wider, and have made serious efforts to extend it, but without success.

At the risk of extending my personal views too far, I might say that I wish that the National Lottery was much further away from the government than it is.

CJT-80 wrote on Jul 1^st, 2015 at 9:46am:


But the charging information for the Minicom 0370 number is nonsense:

Quote:

I complained over their use of an 084 number to contact them on, as opposed to an 034 number, and got this useless reply:

"Thank you for your email dated 01 July 2015 regarding our contact numbers.

I can confirm that we use non geographic 0845 numbers for call routing purposes.

In regards to our call charges, calls to our 0845 number are charged at a local rate from BT landlines however other providers may charge more. I can confirm that we currently do not make a profit from call charges.

If you have any further queries, please do contact us."

Points to make: I didn't question if they used an 0845 number I asked WHY they did.  Calls are not charged at Local Rates (they don't exist).  I didn't suggest they make a profit from their use of the number.

Looks like a bog standard template reply to me.

Here is my original e-mail:

"Good Morning,

As a user of the National Lottery service, I was wondering why National Lottery/Camelot still use an 084 number for their main contact details? (0845 9 100 000)

I notice that both the Minicom and complaints lines are 03 numbers (0370) so why has the 084 number not been changed to an 034 number?  It is completely possible to have 0345 9 100 000.

Whist I appreciate that the National Lottery/Camelot have no rules that require you to change the number over, surely from a customer service perspective it would seem the " right thing to do" ?

I look forward to your reply.

Any suggestions on words to use in my reply? 

It will be interesting to see if their telecoms company advised them that an 0844 number would be a cheaper call than an 0845 number.

From 26 October 2015, financial services will also be subject to the same 'basic rate' restrictions.

New FCA regulation comes into effect on that date.

Just because the gambling sector isn't yet banned from using premium rate numbers, doesn't mean they should carry on using them.