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08 Jan 2009
BT says it has stolen a march on its rivals by becoming the first UK telephone company to offer free 0870 and 0845 calls to customers.
The move follows a deluge of complaints from customers unhappy at having to pay extra to call these premium numbers, which are frequently used by banks and insurance companies as well as NHS Direct and doctor's surgeries.
"We know that the public is frustrated by having to pay higher charges for these numbers, even though BT's rates were cheaper than our rivals, so we worked out a way to go further and include calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers in our call packages," explained John Petter, managing director of BT's Consumer business.
"All our 14 million calls customers have free calls included in their package and now all 14 million have free calls to 0870 and 0845 at times that fit with their calling plan, which is something not offered by any of our competitors," he added.
According to Petter, BT customers spend an average of 30 minutes a month calling these numbers, meaning that customers should save a total of around £24m per year.
The move was welcomed by price comparison site moneysupermarket.com, with the company's mobile manager, James Parker, saying: "We applaud BT for taking the first steps to helping customers receive a fairer deal when calling these numbers.
"With every household service provider adopting 08 numbers, callers have for too long been forced to shoulder the cost for premium rates that only line the pockets of providers. Now BT has taken the first steps, we urge other providers to do the same and abolish these charges."
The change excludes ISP dial-up numbers and indirect access numbers.
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Do you agree?
business 0845 phone number
0845 numbers will suite in the advanced telephone and fax services that ensure expedient and unified communication.Callers to this number would only pay cheap per minute (inc VAT) rate at all times for calls from the BT network.Although,mobile and other networks may vary.
Posted by: 0845 phone number 09 Apr 2010
The benefits of 0845 and 0844 numbers
What about all the small companies that benefit from the low running costs of an 0845 or 0844 number? They're much cheaper than installing a traditional PBX and can offer many services that would be unavailable to these companies due to the high costs associated with running a network. Does a few pennies really matter?! We got our number from www.planet-numbers.co.uk for a fraction of the cost of installing a PBX.
Posted by: John Stevens 03 Nov 2009
Outrageous Con
The fact that one is obliged to pay anything, let alone the sometimes astounding charges, to contact service providers who are often already offering poor service is one of the most egregious cases of company arrogance that has been the British public's misfortune to shoulder in recent years. Although the service may have originally been intended to make calling distant offices a non 'long-distance' charge those early good intentions have morphed into cynical attempts to further sting the consumer. Needless to say, the banks have, fro the most part fully endorsed the money making facility of the process. With the advent of call plans that offer calling unrelated to distance, why not just abolish these 08 numbers altogether?
Posted by: Peter Parker 13 Oct 2009
think of poorer people
i have often not called important matters on 0845 numbers because i cannot afford them and at $1.50 a miniute just dont know what the end cost will be because these days nothing is easy and you get passed on to other departments and talk to people who know nothing.it all adds up so i dont call them.
Posted by: mrs chapman 08 Oct 2009