Ian01
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Deals like this, which seek to hide the true arrangement of the called party benefitting from Service Charge revenue, only encourage businesses to retain these numbers. Declaration of Service Charge shows the arrangement for what it really is. Only those who call premium numbers should pay the Service Charge.
Businesses using these numbers try to claim that calls to their premium rate numbers are free when called from certain call plans. They seem unaware that a contribution towards the Service Charge is then paid by all callers on that network irrespective of whether they call these numbers or not.
As phone networks have to recover the revenue, they do so by increasing the cost of line rental, inclusive call plans and out of plan calls. In general, consumers lose.
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