Financial firms are still charging customers to complain

It’s quite strange that one is nearly always put on hold and is told (repeatedly) that “your call is important to us” on an 084 number, but when you’re calling an 0800 number you usually don’t have to wait very long before a real human being answers! Strange, that.

Yes, I do it all the time, but some companies are waking up to this.

BTW it’s “Saynoto0870”. Just correcting for those bods looking for the site. 🙂

You could type that in, but you won’t always find an alternative number.

The point is, consumers should not have to be faffing about in this way.

Businesses should have a geographic-rate number as standard.

Calls to 0845 numbers incur a 2p/min Service Charge to the benefit of the called party. That’s what stops these calls generally counting towards inclusive allowances. Technically, 0845 numbers are no different to an 0843 or 0844 number with a Service Charge at the lower end of their scale of 2p to 7p/min. However, a small number of landline providers subsidise the Service Charge on 0845 calls and allow them to count towards inclusive allowances. They do not do the same for the equivalent 0843 or 0844 calls.

Revenue sharing was suspended on 0870 numbers in 2009. There is currently no Service Charge to pay when you call an 0870 number. This allows the call to be inclusive in many landline call plan allowances. However, mobile operators haven’t dropped their prices for calling 0870 numbers, nor made these calls inclusive. Ofcom is shortly expected to announce that revenue sharing will return to 0870 numbers in 2015. It’s anticipated that the Service Charge will be around 10p/min.

Many users of 0845 and 0870 numbers continue to use them as they are under the mistaken impression that these numbers are cheap to call for everyone. The reality is that 0870 is cheap to call only from landlines and 0845 is cheap only from BT landlines and from those landlines that copy BT prices. On the other hand, 0345 and 0370 numbers, indeed all 03 numbers, are charged at the same rate as calling an 01 or 02 number and count towards inclusive allowances from landlines and mobiles. 03 numbers have been available since 2007 but the adoption rate for them has been slow. Once the provisions of the Consumer Rights Directive pass into law at the beginning of 2014, that rate will dramatically increase. Users can simply move from their existing 084 or 087 number to the matching 034 or 037 number.

The pricing regime for 084, 087 and 09 numbers in place for the last decade or more has placed a pricing restriction on BT’s retail call prices for 084, 087 and 09 numbers. Call pricing on other networks is unregulated. It is BT’s call price that is unusually low in the market. It is BT that varies from all of the others.

The restriction placed on BT call prices for 084, 087 and 09 numbers will be lifted at the same time as Ofcom’s “unbundled tariffs” system comes into force in 2015. At that point, both 0845 and 0870 numbers will no longer be included in call allowances. Additionally, users of 084, 087 and 09 numbers will be required to declare the Service Charge for their number wherever it is advertised.

Under the “unbundled tariffs” system, phone providers will set and declare a single Access Charge per tariff covering all 084, 087 and 09 numbers. If the Access Charge is set at the same level as a call to an 01, 02 or 03 number, it will soon become clear that due to the Service Charge, calls to 0845 numbers cost 2p/min more than calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers, calls to 0870 numbers cost 10p/min more than calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers, calls to 0843 and 0844 numbers cost 2p to 7p/min more than calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers, calls to 0871, 0872 and 0873 numbers cost up to 13p/min more than calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers, and calls to 09 numbers cost up to £3 per minute more than calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers.

While the call price for 0870 numbers from landlines will rise and the call price for 0845 numbers from BT landlines (and from those that copy BT prices) will rise, the requirement to set and declare a single Access Charge per tariff covering all 084, 087 and 09 numbers will see a significant reduction in the call price when they are called from a mobile phone. The current “equivalent” levels of Access Charge charged by mobile operators (e.g. around 28p to 39p/min for calls to 084 numbers, slightly less for calls to 087 numbers, and very much more for calls to 09 numbers) will not be tolerated by Ofcom.

This is the essence of Ofcom’s “simplifying non-geographic numbers” project. It will show that 084, 087 and 09 numbers are “expensive” because you also pay a Service Charge to the benefit of the called party and it will show that 01, 02 and 03 calls are “cheap” because there is no such additional charge. By splitting the call price for 084, 087 and 09 numbers into two components, it will be clear how much money your telephone company is making from the call and how much money is being passed to the telephone company of who you are calling.

Ofcom will shortly deliver the end result of their long-running “simplifying non-geographic numbers” project. That project is currently running many months late, not least due of stiff opposition encountered from various phone companies and especially several mobile networks.

The changes about to the brought in by Ofcom should have the desired result in the non-geographic numbers market. The error previously made with 0870 numbers will be put right. Overall, the measures will bring greater transparency to the call price of all 084, 087 and 09 numbers, and this will see consumers treated much more fairly than before.

However, the new Ofcom system must not be considered in isolation. It must be seen to be complementary to the various measures brought in by BIS as a result of the Consumer Rights Directive.