Nowadays the vast majority of companies have customer service lines open to extend outside peak times. Therefore I think I am correct in saying that many of us can call 'geographic numbers' (01, 02 etc) for up to 60 mins or 70 mins 'free'. I know that 'moneysavingexpert' has waged a long standing war against 0845 numbers and others.

If you agree with me that, on the face of it, 0845 is a cheek does anyone have any ideas on how 'we' could protest effectively?

OR

If I have missed something like 0845 is an indirect charge to the customer which would simply be slapped on somewhere else, please tell me.

And finally, I have purposely left all other numbers out of this post and particularly '0870' because that is expensive and known to be so, so that is another post.

I appreciate that people like to 'get off the point' and that is 'custom and practice' BUT I would like to request that no other numbers like 0870 are brought into getting off the point. Thank you, franc.

0845 number really, really annoy me. I do see them as an indirect charge, and a direct response to evolution of package phone calls. My solution is to call them from my mobile as i have so many bundled minutes that it makes no odds to me and 0845 numbers are included (actually, better check that, maybe). I'm not sure what happens with other numbers so perhaps I'd better check that, too.

It's the same old story - with one hand we are given the ability to save money, then with the other, conditions or restrictions on that are exploited so that we don't.

I try to avoid calling 0845 as much as I avoid calling 0870 - to me, they are the same (sorry, but couldn't avoid the mention of 0870).

Cat

these numbers are supposed to help us, 0845 being local call rate and 0870 national ? however with all the FREE CALLS FROM EVERY LAND LINE PACKAGE THEY MAY AS WELL JUST GIVE OUT STRAIGHT LAND LINE NUMBER ! , but smaller SME's sound like big company you see and thats why some of them use it.

IMHO 0845 numbers are partly a carry over from when companies provided it to their customers as a benefit 'wherever you are in the country, you will all pay the same' which has never been revisited.

And to a certain extent this is still the case- not everyone has a package which includes free minutes (Mine doesnt, primarily as we only have the home phone line to receive calls and for Sky, so isnt cost effective for me to pay a higher rental to reduce the call charges).

Personally, I would say that you may be paying for an 0845 number, but wouldnt for an 01..., 02.... number. However if all the companies switched to this, the telecoms companies income would reduce, thereby forcing them to recover this lost revenue elsewhere - so you would probably end up paying for it elsewhere maybe less free minutes, higher tarriffs for other calls etc.)

Fiamold aka Dave

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Dave

P.S. I feel obliged to point out, I am speaking from experience and my own personal views above - I am not an advisor, nor an expert.

0845 used to be 0345 and was advertised as lo-call, inferring it's cheap, I haven't come across an expensive 0845 number, unless I connect with my prepay mobile, looking at my landline phone bill it looks like 0845 numbers cost about 3.5p a minute.
I do object to the term 'local rate' as a fifteen minute call to my bank costs over 50p, but the same call to my friend on a 0208 number costs anything from 0p to 20p depending on the time of day, so there's nothing 'local rate' about it, though I don't think I would go so far as to call it a premium rate number, which I go out of my way not to call.
The only thing about 0845 number that you could possibly protest about is that it is advertised as a 'local rate', however there are now lots of telephone operators out there now and you would need to get an average price across the entire network of operators to determine what really is the average cost of local rate.

Try this site

http://www.saynoto0870.co.uk/search.php

and never pay again!
In most cases you get a quicker reply and often without the "push this button" after all they're not making money by keeping you on the phone!!

Now I can see that being a useful site.

Thanks very muchly

Fiamold aka Dave

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Dave

P.S. I feel obliged to point out, I am speaking from experience and my own personal views above - I am not an advisor, nor an expert.

http://www.saynoto0870.com/

If you are not happy with call charges for 0845 and 0870 numbers then please sign the petition on the website http://www.saynoto0870.com/

Get all your friends and family to sign.

Regards

There is a site on line that will give you the geographic NO, IE: 01 02 etc. I know its a bind to have to look up these numbers, but if you you use certain ones a lot its worth doing. Just google it with SAY NO TO 0870, it covers 0845 as well :-) Hope that helps

OOps someone got there before me

It's even worse for those of us who have no need for a landline and only have a mobile.

>sigh<

Hello shiverkitten
O2 used to be and may well still be the only mobile network that includes 0845 in the 'bundle' and I thought 0870 but I'm not sure. I had a couple of O2 contracts a while ago.

I will definitely have to check my bundling!!

Cat

The most annoying thing about all these type of number is that they all have answer machines "for xxx go to 1, for yyy go to 2" etc and then they ask you to hold, and hold, and hold saying such lovely lies as "Please do hold, your call is VERY important to us" - and you are paying for this - 5p a minute for 20 mins is a quid and firms like Parcelforce NEVER seem to employ enough people to answer within a reasonable time.

Sorry, but I disagree with the sentiments that are being allowed to permeate here.

My business used normal numbers for IT support and we were inundated with kids and idiots asking stupid questions that ties up expensive personnel for literally hours on end without a penny to show for it.

Moving the number to an 0870 meant that everyone KNEW that they were being charged national rate. Non-geographic meant that we stopped getting canvass calls from India and our 'phone system went from useless to useful in less than one month.

Yes we do earn a little amount of money from it, but not enough to pay a person's wages. The 0870 number's revenue that we get goes to paying for staff to have a good time ONCE a year.

I know you are all angry about large corporations using these numbers, but in your fury, remember us small businesses who are bing nailed against a wall for trying to make an honest living and for protecting our investment in people and technology. If you dial our number you will either speak with a person or an answerphone NEVER a "press one for xx, two for xx". That device went in the bin within one month of installation.

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For every positive action, there's an equal and opposite government plan.