Just to express my total shock and disgust that Link Asset Services (formerly known as Capita who are renowned for 084/7/71 numbers in any call centre they have ever set up or run) are still today using an 0871 number on their main contact us page at www.linkassetservices.com/contact-us for ordinary shareholders to contact them at the top of the page.  But much further down the page they go on to show that they have an 0371 number which they say is for calls only from outside the UK.  Then they also have a normal 020 number which they say is for business calls only.

And a supervisor there called Dan who I complained to yesterday afternoon unbelievably tried to tell me that 0871 numbers are charged at "local rate"

This is what they currently have on their web page at www.linkassetservices.com/contact-us although if they are not beyond hope (I find most share registrars phone lines to be centres of low intelligence where they are only usually capable of parrotting things off crib sheets the management gave them years ago) they may have removed the 0871 number and references before the end of today?

Quote:


So they illogically tell people overseas to call their 03 number (which can be very expensive outside the EU as Ofcom General Condition 17 does not apply to charging 03 numbers at geographic rates from outside the UK and the EU's Roaming Directive does not apply outside the EU) and not their 020 number (which would be safest from overseas as its always charged at geographic rate) but then they tell UK callers to call the 0871 number that may be charged at up to 76p per minute plus access charge from a mobile and is full  premium rate manged by the Phone Paid Services Authority (PSA) formerly known as PhonePayPlus and ICSTIS (they still have the same Chairman as in ICSTIS days).

Two points to add:

• Use of this 0871 number is in breach of FCA regulations - see Financial services basic rate calls.
   
• With the EE Access Charge now at 65p per minute, it now costs up to 77p per minute to call 0871 664 0300.

Also SilentCalls Victim is the FCA rule breach reporting process at all effective in bringing the company in question to book or is it the usual ineffectual polite letter between members of the old boys club...........

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Sep 5^th, 2019 at 2:02pm:


Sorry but these people are share registrars who have to comply with numerous other FCA regulations on maintaining proper client records and due diligence and they have had four years to comply with and implement this part of the FCA rules.  Also since they use an especially aggravating and customer exploiting 0871 number that is a true premium rate number I am sure that its inappropriate nature will have been mentioned to their staff almost every time by callers and yet and none of Capita/Link's front line staff seem to be what I would call highly intellectually able and they are therefore apparently all content to follow their masters instructions to read from the corporate crib sheet claiming the 0871 is a local rate number even though many of their staff must know full well from their own personal experience of making phone calls that this is simply not true.

If these rules were taken seriously by the FCA and they proactively took enforcement action against seemingly deliberate and persistent offenders then clearly we wouldn't still be finding egregious breaches of the phone number calling rules like this one now.

These same corporate beings are very happy to impose numerous unreasonable charges on their customers such as the £10 charge they are trying to make for every single cheque they have issued in my mother's name with dividend payments since she died (before she died the dividends were paid electronically but as soon as her bank told them the account was closed due to her death they started spewing out regular cheques in her name and not the executors names to her home) in order to reissue them in the name of the executors.

We couldn't cash any of those cheques in my mother's name as she had died and it took a long while to get probate due to the complexity of the estate.  As neither Computershare or Equiniti have charged anything to reissue these dividend cheques that have not been carelessly lost or misplaced by us or not cashed in time but are simply uncashable as issued then why should Link Asset Services be able to penalise a deceased person's estate in this way?

You seem to be much too benevolent in your attitude towards large and frequently cynical big corporates (Lowri Beck is another major case in point of such a reckless continued misuser of these numbers with their 0844 CLI) with a bad enough attitude to the rights of their customers as this one (although no doubt all of that was mainly down to Capita in their time rather than Australian Link Asset Service who have only taken over in recent months but so far they seem to have made very few staff changes and in my view some significant restructuring of the staff is needed by Link UK to deal with Capita's very poor corporate approach to customers).

My attitude is there are endless corporates and number vending telcos who will go on abusing these numbers for as long as they can get away with it as there is plenty of money involved in doing so.  The telco providing this 0871 number will in particular have racked up large profits.

I have wasted enough of my life picking off individual misusers yet even now four to five years after the rules changed they are still doing it.

So my solution is stop hidden charging through NTS numbers completely (with their ridiculous lack of any pre charge call announcements) and close them all down and get anyone who wants to pay for services remotely to do so directly using a debit or credit card or Apple or Android Pay or whatever so that customers know and are sure they are agreeing to pay these charges in advance of using a service.

I am tired of all the endless excuses made by 084/7 using call centres that they didn't know about these numbers and thought they were local rate (which are simply not credible this much time on in 2019) and the only solution is to cut off the covert revenue charging telecoms gravy train at source by closing down these number ranges thus automatically forcing these companies to replace them with normal rate 03 numbers.

If you personally have the time to waste in your life on writing endless more letters on this subject and find this a personally enjoyable hobby to participate in well that is clearly up to you.  I personally never want to have to complain about another abusive call centre misusing 084/7 numbers again....................

Also HMRC are already trying to impose ridiculous penalties at £100 a week on tax returns I told them I didn't have all the records to complete yet and they know I have never been an executor before.  The government aren't benevolent towards people not paying road tax or who forget an MOT so why do you think we should be so benevolent towards call centre professionals for whom this is their main business four to five years on from these numbers (especially 0871 numbers which show a far worse corporate attitude to customers in the first place) having been banned by regulations?  I think it must be because you enjoy feeling that your own personal letter or email has managed to get that wrong phone number finally changed?

I see Link (nee Capita) are still listing the 0871 number today (Saturday 7th September) post their meeting yesterday (Friday 6th September) so either they must still believe that 0871 is "local rate" in spite of all the evidence presented to them to the contrary or their internal or external web page developers need more time to make a very simply change of text content on the existing web page.......

Its not like they have to go to their telecoms supplier and request an 0371 number and have it go live.  They already have the 0371 number connecting to precisely the same IVR system (I have dialled it and spoken to them on it and contrary to the false lies given to them by the greedy telco who sold them the 0871 number it does work perfectly fine from a UK mobile number) as the 0871 so why is it taking them so long to fix this problem.

It certainly doesn't inspire any confidence in their other abilities as a business and indeed none of their front line contact centre staff on their so called "bereavement" line inspire any confidence at all in that regard either.........

Also no reply from any of the senior management at Link in Australia either (I have a read receipt from the Australian finance director) to assure me they are on the case and very concerned to hear about this matter. So do they perhaps have almost exactly the same kind of amorphous corporate structure as Capita did...........

Clearly Link's morals and quality of management are even worse than I feared as an email to the CEO and the directors have not done the trick and the 0871 number remains firmly listed on their website as the method of customer contact.

Also their so called head of Business Quality Assurance appears to have simply forgotten her commitment to send me a further final response on this matter within a few days of her previous holding emails.

Clearly a company that cares only about money and not about the quality of the customer service experience!