Loyal customers pay to call banks – new ones get it free. Why?

I always try to avoid 0870 and 0845 numbers. I use VoIP phone calls on the internet and calls to fixed landlines anywhere in europe and the USA are virtually free. People who have phone tariffs which give free 0870, 0845 numbers pay more than I do overall for calls.

If I cant find a geographic number (01 or 02) with http://www.saynoto0870.com, I try google to see if I can find a number under ‘contacts’

In a very rare situation that I am forced to use a high cost number, I always complain. It has just occurred to me that I could ask to be called back.

Regards,………….Topher.
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0845 & 0870 numbers really annoy me! Whether from people who want my business [they don’t get it unless I have no realistic alternatives!] or from existing suppliers. The very least an existing supplier should do is to offer a normal national number to call, for those – like me – who have an inclusive landline call package. I do my best to get round them by using their so called “dialling from overseas” numbers, using “Say No to O870” and Googling to find Head Office numbers and asking to be transferred.
I also HATE websites that fail to give a telephone number to call even when you know full well that the company concerned does deal with consumers over the phone.
Far too many organisations have lost touch with the reality of what good “Customer Service” should provide, and are far more concerned with ruthless, short term cost cutting than with ensuring customer satisfaction and hence ongoing, low cost, repeat business. I’m sure that the net result is that many have to spend the money that they have “saved” on finding and acquiring replacement customers for those who – like me – vote with their feet wherever possible!

Hats off to Geoff above. Vote with feet is good but I think the golden rule is to make sure you tell the offending supplier you won’t use these numbers on principle; and keep telling them. If enough of us did this, they’d get the message sooner.

Tell whom, Peter?
My bitter experience is that – once you have got through to someone who has the skills to help you – that person rarely has authority to respond to complaints, or access to any system for recording complaints, and are unable [not allowed?] to transfer you to a Supervisor, Manager or anyone else with such authority.
Worse still, almost none of the companies who operate this way have a an easily or obviously accessible system for registering or receiving Customer Complaints, so they do not accumulate the metrics that would allow them to identify the common causes of their customers’ dis-satisfaction; and if they don’t have that data, how can they begin to tackle their deficiencies?

The answer to this problem is very simple! Change your Bank if it uses an 0845 / 0870 number, after all it is your money that is allowing it to function – even if it is just a little!

I agree with all the above. On my phone tariff calls to geographic numbers are free, but I pay for calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers. It’s not just banks that have 0800 numbers for new customers and 0870 or 0845 for those that have been with them a while. Insurance companies use 0800 numbers on their adverts, but more expensive numbers if you want to make a claim. I keep a record of their 0800 number and use that instead – it usually works.
If I can’t find a free number for a company, then I make sure my business goes elsewhere in the future.
Also, I notice that firms that use 0870 and 0845 numbers tend to keep callers hanging on the line for ages. Companies that have 0800 numbers usually answer my call and deal with my query very quickly, often in just a few seconds. So I save time as well as money.

I think that no customers should pay to call their bank ! I also use “Say no to 0845 /0870 numbers”
web site. Some banks reserve numbers for over seas customers. If the system picks up the fact that
the incoming call is “domestic” the system will block the call. The way round this is to dial 1414 before the call number. This will show as” number withheld” on the banks system and the call should go through! Good luck.

Of course, companies should give geographical or, preferably, freephone numbers to customers. Companies make money out of their indirect phone numbers. So anyone who dials e.g. an 0870 number is paying for the ‘customer service’. This practise is rife in UK. Other countries in which I have had to call customer services nearly always provide a freephone number – even airlines. I always look for a free or, at least, geographical number to call. Sometimes this means asking to be transferred to the right department. If the first person who answers won’t put me through I put the phone down and try again. Eventually I get someone who will put me through (they are often in the same office even when they say they cannot put me through). It is annoying but I will not pay the company to sort out my complaint or give me information.They are supposed to do that as part of their contract with the customer. If I absolutely cannot get through that way I email them and get them to phone me back. We are too soft (or maybe worn down) in the UK. We still think like serfs while the ‘Lords of the Manor’ (businesses and the rich) exploit us for their profit. We really need to show them that they need us more than we need them.

Boy, am I annoyed with this use of 0845/0871 numbers. I spent a happy 40 minutes hanging on on a 0871 number to my car insurers just to get the go ahead to fix a windcreen chip. It would have been almost as cheap to pay for the job myself. By the way, I gave up in the end and wrote them a less than complimentary e-mail!

There are some useful and effective tips in the earlier replies. As it happens, I’ve got a very good landline and call package with O2 which includes free calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers. However, many organisations are going over to 0844 numbers, which cost about 5 pence per minute. This is particularly annoying as you’re usually calling because you have a problem with the organisation concerned. However, http://www.saynoto0870.com is an excellent site and always worth a try. The tip about dialing 141 before the “call from overseas” number should also work. I really object to being kept on hold (or listening to a prolonged spiel written by compliance lawyers) when the firm concerned makes money out of its failure to answer the phone. Where’s their incentive to improve waiting times?

It is not just banks that do this. Insurance companies often have an 0800 number for quotations but it can be expensive to call about anything else.

There may be a case for charging for a service that involves speaking to a person. Calls to make a complaint should be free and the company should pay for time on hold, until you are connected to someone who can provide help.

These numbers cost me £8 on my telephone bill last month. I could not find any other way of getting the information I needed. My broadband package does not give me free 0845 or 0870 numbers so I am going to vote with my feet and change provider although that is proving difficult trying to get the MAC code!!

The 0845/0870 con is not nearly as bad as the 0844 one! At least a large number of BT customers on an “all inclusive” tariff get calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers included at no extra cost whereas nobody has that option with the ever increasing use of the 0844 numbering. An initial “set-up” fee of almost 12p and then a range of 28 tariffs (g1 – g28) ranging from 5.00p a minute to 10.00p a minute on numbers that nearly always place you in a long menu driven queue that extracts your cash. The service provider (commercial companies) take the lion’s share of the tariff money (not the set-up fee) and the company you are calling take anything from 0.25p to 1.5p minute “to defray expenses”. You need to download the pages of data from http://www.bt.com/pricing in order to identify the tariff being charged for any particular 0844 number – it is the three digits that follow the 0844 that tell you this! Government shied away from banning their use but told the NHS to make sure that callers “are not charged more than the equivalent cost of calling a geographical number” but failed to inform how it is possible to monitor this or even calculate what callers are paying. This “cop-out” by Government completely ignores the hundreds of thousands of people like me who have an “all inclusive” tariff and don’t pay again for service type calls! My doctor refuses to drop their 0844 number. Bravo to http://www.saynoto0870.com it is a fantastic site and always my first port of call whenever faced with 0871 or 0844 etc. -approx 90% success rate!

When buying from any company for the first time, whether online or offline, I look/ask for an 0800 or geographic number for post purchase service that I can call free with my call package. If planning to buy online an email to the company saying I am planning to place an order but as a pre-requisite require such a number almost always gets a response. If ordering by phone, I thank the person at the other end for the info. No info = no order and either way, I will phone the number provided to check before ordering.

How about a Which article which names and shames the bad organisations, and praises the good ones with free or geographic numbers. Just two lists, one in red, the other in green, with a short paragraph of explanation.

Clearly Which would need to check with each company they were about to shame, this might provoke some positive changes.

When the article was published, some newspapers e.g. the Telegraph, might reprint the information. With luck some big organisations might change. Individual customers choosing to leave because of a 10p/minute call really wont make any difference, but Which can.

Regards,……………Topher.

I’ve got a very good value landline etc package with O2 which includes the cost of calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers, amongst other benefits. However, I’ve noticed that, over the last 12 months or so, companies have switched to 0844 and 0871 numbers which I have to pay for, presumably because they make more money out of them as they’re not included in the O2 and similar packages.

I still check with “saynoto0870” but does anyone have a way of getting around this blatant rip off? Why doesn’t Offcom insist that an alternative landline number’s available as well as what are, in effect, premium rate numbers.

Sorry – I don’t care – In the old days I had to go to my Bank personally to get service – the cost of petrol alone far more than any 08456 phone call – and s..l..o..w. (over an hour)

Now I access my account 24/7 (as the Americans say) for free at home via the Internet – and – I can also access a helpful human telephone teller during the same period of time – My Bank does not have charges for a current account.

Why is it when companies make charges for services rendered – it is “a rip off”??. Why should customers have everything for “free” – someone has to pay the cost. Count your blessings – or change your Bank.

I have a current account with a French bank. It is a mutual. I have to pay about 5 € per month (just like everybody else) for the account which has a cheque book and a debit card which gives me up to 30 days to pay the full amount. I am delighted to pay about 60 € per year for the following reasons.

If I have a question, I can phone the branch (a geographic number) during office hours and speak the manager who knows me. He does not ask me for any security information, he just solves the problem. I have internet banking, I can make the equivalent of a BACS transfer 24/7. Once when the amount was large, the manager phoned me to check before letting the transaction go through.

Once a year the Bank has an AGM to report the results – a powerpoint presentation with senior managers speaking personally afterwards. This is followed by an entertainer, and finally a cold supper, with wine.

I would happily pay 60 € per year to a UK bank which offered the same service.

Patrick,

Thanks for your prompt response. I suggested that Cathy should write an article on 30 October 2011. Nothing happened.

Consider the number of bank customers who are ripped off by 0870/0845 numbers in one year. Let me suggest some numbers and a formula. Calls probably take at least 10 minutes with the enforced music and key pad entries, so let me propose an extra 50 pence per call. Call centres have hundreds of staff and work 24/7, would you accept 500,000 calls per bank per year? For the number of banks involved, let’s say four. I have tried to choose conservative amounts.

The formula is – extra cost of a call = £0.50, times number of calls in a year = 500,000, times number of banks involved = 4. This comes to £1 million.

Surely this is enough to justify an article. I see that you used to write on technology and entertainment. I am sure you could write an excellent ‘name and shame’ piece. I think that as the subject is so general, and affects us all, it should go in Which, not Money Which.

Regards,……………Topher.

That’s got my vote!

I have contacted Which? Editorial office several times suggesting that the idea of an article on this subject was well overdue but that it MUST include an investigation in to the 0844 epidemic, as more and more companies, even small ones, are switching over to this method of extracting money from us.

Rarely do they point out in their advertising that the call charges (sometimes) quoted do not include the call set-up fee levied by BT, currently around 13p a call I think! Number often described as a Low Call number whereas was actually launched by BT as Lo-Call (i.e. a local number)! Complex charging bands (28 of them) and around ten different call rates but next to impossible now to find details on BT’s website as are deeply buried.

I’m still battling the use of 0844 numbers by GP’s surgeries as a loophole in the Dept. of Health directives of 18th & 21st December 2009 say it’s ok provided the patients are not charged more than the equivalent cost of calling a geographical number! Seems GP’s have worked out that patients have no way of either checking this or persuing a case! Rare that I can book an appointment at the surgery for less than a £1. Not a number that one can avoid by using “saynoto0870” or other sources – all brilliant at what they do.

Why should we have to spend so much time in finding proper numbers to use when we, their customers, need to call business’s with whom we have already spent money or will be spending money on their product? BT describe my inclusive tariff as “unlimited anytime plan” and even generously includes calls to 0845/0870 numbers but have you noticed how these have decreased in popularity as 0844 takes over?

So much more profitable for BT, for the companies that “sell” the 0844 service and the companies that take a rake-off from the charges! Expose this for what it is and do it soon please.

We need the article! Vote for the article! Vote now! As we are in the UK, you can only vote once!

Click on the ‘ blue thumbs up’ symbol at the bottom of the above three entries if you want the article. We have been swindled long enough.

VOTE NOW!

Lloyds still try to confuse the unknowing general public with an 0845 numbers. Their stealth costs are also ridiculous and not competitive http://www.lloydstsb.com/contact-us.asp

My GP surgery, whilst retaining an 0844 number have very quietly introduced a local 03 number for those nimble enough to spot it! The rate at which even the smallest companies are moving over to 0844 numbering has become an epidemic and just this week I have been able to research alternative numbers for 6 businesses who wanted me to pay for the privelege of doing business with them! Many fail to advise of the cost that will be incurred and those that do mention it, usually in the smallest font possible, fail to mention that all callers will also have to pay the BT call set-up charge of around 13p. Although not well publicised the AA agreed to bring in an alternative number for their insurance customers and did so but fail to mention it in their letters, which still only give an 0844 number. It is supposedly on their website but I couldn’t find it! Just one of thousands of firms exploiting their paying customers. This needs to be exposed and explanations sought as to why they think it is acceptable.

Our GP’s surgery has abandoned its “premium rate” number and now has a local number I’m pleased to say. The move to 0844 numbers by so many companies is very annoying as it’s increasingly difficult to avoid them, even by using “saynoto0870”. I’ve recently ordered something from Kaleidoscope which has failed to arrive and its so-called tracking system’s useless. I’ve emailed them but the only way I can contact them by phone is an 0844 number – so I have to pay for their failure to deliver. They’ve got £75 of my money and I’ve got nothing. I am NOT happy and will not use them again.

Some companies have become crafty. My bank has an expensive number for customer services but an 0800 number for card activation. Until some time ago, savvy customers could ring the 0800 number and, by waiting long enough, get through to customer services. This has now been stopped.

But it’s worked with my car insurance provider (Aviva). Existing customers have to ring a payable number. However, I have always rung the sales number (0800) and got the agent to transfer me.