0870 numbers are expensive.
Why would anyone want to call a company on their 0870 number…. which is sometimes automatically answered by a machine for us all to listen to some horrible loud and crackly music…. and every now and again an automated voice pipes in to tell us that our call is so very important to them and that’s why they are making us wait for absolutely ages before we press some more buttons and then finally talk to a human…..who happens to then the wrong person in the wrong department…..so we then get passed through to somebody else via another long wait in a phone queue with lots more button pressing along the way?
To avoid the big 0870 con I’ve been using the following service now for a couple of years , and have to say that it is brilliant.
saynoto0870.com is a website full of alternative telephone numbers. Rather than having to call the expensive 0870 numbers that so many companies now expect us to call (and some raise themselves a bit more revenue). Saynoto0870 is populated by you and I, the callers. If we know a local or free telephone number to call we simply suggest the number to the site and help out other callers. So for most 0870’s there are local numbers which reach the same people, saynoto0870 tells us those numbers and we save money calling those numbers.
I quote from the site the following:
“Many people don’t realise that there are many phone providers offering cheaper calls to standard telephone numbers (those beginning with 01 or 02), which don’t apply to 0844, 0845, 0870 or 0871 telephone numbers. - Please see the links page and click on Cheapest Call Provider for price details. This shows that by using multiple providers, you can reduce your call cost on standard telephone numbers to as little as 3p fixed cost (regardless of duration), whereas the cheapest provider to 0870 numbers during the day that I am aware of charges 4p/min (+ 3p connection fee) to call.”
Annoyingly ‘TV Licencing’ have been sending a regular letter to my flat every three months, it is an empty flat which is being repaired and renovated. On the letter they request I phone them, to confirm that the property is empty, and they quote an 0870 number for me to call. OK, so they want me to phone an 0870 number, join a queue, listen to some music, pay for the privilege and then tell them that I don’t have a TV in the property? What is in it for me? No way. I check out saynoto0870.com and look up a replacement local number, which happens to be “0117 3021758″ and call that instead, which happens to be free for TalkTalk customers to call anyway. Job done.
Check out the site, well worth bookmarking.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
What a rediculously unresearched article. My company uses an 0870 number and we do not have machines or loud crackly music and we certainly don’t charge a premium. All calls made to our number are normal rates and pain free.
Please think twice before publishing sweeping generalisations that could potentially damage innocent businesses.
February 15th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Hi Mark W,
Thanks for your comment. Perphaps you could answer the following three questions:
1) How much it costs to telephone your company for connection, and per minute for a five minute call?
2) You mention normal rates, please explain what you mean by normal rates? Have a read of http://www.saynoto0870.com/calls.php first, which demonstrates that 0870 numbers are more expensive than 0845 and national geographical numbers, and shows the lowest charges for each number.
3) With ref to the URL mentioned in question: daytime rate to an 0845 number is cheeper than dialing a 0870 number. Why did your company decide to use an 0870 number for your customers to call rather than an 0845 number?
Look forward to further constructive debate.
April 11th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
I could not agree more with your comments. I get really angry being held on a line listening to waffle or piped music, and even more angry pressing a list of numbers etc etc knowing this is costing me money !!!!!!!
May 10th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I cannot for one minute imagine a shop letting me have goods and then ask me to wait to pay them….. but thats what have to do when you want to pay them… i dont have time to wait till weekends or cheap times to pay ANY time should be an easy time when they are recieving payment from me… (and some charge a late payment fee - when THEY are keeping us from paying them) ive started to not buy if they use 0870 or if they keep me waiting - Their loss
Why do we let them get away with it - more and more companies are doing this, is there nothing we can do other than try all those things previously listed -SOMEBODY think of a way of not letting them get away with it.
THANKS ( I hadnt known you existed)
June 8th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Tried to contact Thomson holidays- re seat reservation- 1st time waited 10 minutes-only music and robots replied-2nd time waited 15 minutes-only music and robots until I heard the message -the other person has cleared- O have paid to listen to musicand robots and the been cut off- absolutely scandalous-had a word with my MP and he said this is LEGAL- When I proposed that he should try to stop this practice-his reply no it is all legal so BEWARE Thomson customers do not try any of their 0870 numbers- they are only manned by robots and it is another way of them getting your money.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I had a look on the website with the petition regarding 0870 costs. I was greeted with the usual governmental blarney ( http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page11748.asp ).
Blah ‘consultancy’ blah ‘ofcom’ blah blah ‘introduced over time’.
The section which really stood out was:
‘You might also be re-assured to know that the Government advised two years ago all its departments and agencies against their own use of 0870 numbers. By no means all Departments did use 0870 numbers, but where they did, they should now have been replaced with either geographical, 0845 (local rate) or 0800 numbers.’
Oh Really!!!!!
I tried renewing my passport on the 24hr Passport Line. The number ………
0870 521 0410!!! Correct me if I am wrong but The Home Office Identity and Passport Service is a government deparment isn’t it? I dialled it to be greeted with an explanation of how the department was created and why I should go back to the website to get my information.
Sums it all up really. If the government uses these practices then why shouldn’t businesses.
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Mark W …you’re comments are so naive!! 0870 is a premium rate service. It costs 10p/min - National rate calls are usually free on most telephone packages or at most 4p/min and then probably capped to 10p or something. Have a chat with your employer, he is getting a kick back or if it is a small company the people who supplied your 0870 will be getting a kick back. I have people all the time trying to sell me a 0870 for my clients to call as an additional revenue but i won’t do it because it is such a con.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
To Mark W,
Please do not post if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
0870 are premium rate numbers. They might call them “lo-call” but they operate in exactly the same way as 0906 numbers, just on a lower rate.
What this means is that if you have a telephone package which includes unlimited free calls to landlines (very common these days), or a mobile phone with inclusive minutes, or (in my case) a business line with calls capped at 10p for an hour to landlines, this DOES NOT APPLY to 08xx numbers. A 20 minute conversation on an 0870 number will cost me £2, and the same call to a 01 or 02 number will cost me 10p.
0870 numbers are also charged at higher rates than 0845 and geographical local numbers in the first place. So it costs me twice. Once because its more expensive, and again because any special discounts or inclusive calls I have do not apply.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I spent 45 mins waiting after an answer to my call on an 0870 number. I had wanted to increase my mortgage with my then, present bank. I got fed up and hung up. I then used saynoto0870 to find a number and spoke evntualy to a director who was more interested and concerned as to how I had found his geograhical number than my problem. ( I didn’t tell him about sayno) He eventually said he would look into it and phone me back in ten mins. Two hours later he phoned me back having experienced the same problem. The director told me I could only contact them by 0870 so I ditch them and changed the entire mortgage to another company. I do not do 0870 now and go to the 0800 numbers for all services I want. If anyone tells you it pays for the special equipment do not forget that a business can get tax relief on equipment, it is just an excuse to cover their greed.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
PS
From my previous comments.
I always let a company on afreephone or geographical call that I had chosen to place business with them because they were not using 0870 numbers and had they I would not have given them the opportunity to do business with myself.