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Pull plug on rip-off numbers, say phone activists
TOP companies and Government agencies are today accused of a high-cost "rip-off" of callers forced to use expensive telephone helplines, prompting renewed demands for the numbers to be scrapped.
Scores of GP practices, three hospitals and three police forces in Yorkshire are among those using telephone numbers which can cost significantly more than ordinary local calls.
In a report, consumer group Which? names and shames businesses and publicly-funded agencies, including the TV licensing authority and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), that use higher-charging 0871, 0870, 0844 or 0845 numbers for customer service or technical support lines which are branded a "rip-off".
Organisations using the numbers can share the revenue from calls with the telephone provider – and the longer a customer stays on the line the more the organisation earns. Analysis by the Yorkshire Post shows more than 200 GP practices in the region use non-local numbers. Most surgeries in Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley use 0845 numbers while more than 50 surgeries in West Yorkshire have switched to 0844 lines. In contrast, only a handful of practices in Hull, Doncaster and North Yorkshire have adopted the systems.
Callers to the Wakefield-based Mid Yorkshire NHS trust also ring an 0844 number. Patients ringing the NHS Direct helpline and non-emergency callers to West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and Humberside police forces ring 0845 numbers.
Telecom regulator Ofcom introduced 03 numbers last year, which cost the same as calling a geographic 01 or 02 number, and plans to stop organisations making money from 0870 numbers.
Which? found none of the organisations it checked had switched to 03 and some had moved from 0870 to other high-cost numbers.
It also called customer helplines to find out how long callers were kept waiting.
British Gas, AOL and the DVLA kept people hanging on longest, with average waiting times of around three minutes. One call to AOL was held for over 15 minutes at a cost of 75p from a BT landline.
Neil Fowler, editor of Which? magazine, called for a move to cheaper numbers.
He said: "Why should you pay for the privilege of making a complaint or getting a problem fixed? It's unacceptable that companies and government agencies can make big money from people calling helplines."
Campaigner Dave Lindsay of Doncaster, a spokesman for the website saynoto0870.com, said: "Callers should pay no more than the cost of a local call. With the NHS, there's the point of it being free at the point of need."
Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Danny Alexander said: "The Government is profiting from people who often have
no choice but to access their services via telephone. It is deplorable of the Government to double-charge people to access services such as the DVLA and Passport Office which they are already funding through their taxes. Ministers should make all essential Government helplines free as soon as possible."
The Yorkshire Post has already revealed the DVLA made 3.5m from 0870 numbers last year while the Department for Work and Pensions made more than 1.4m from 0845 lines over two years.
A 10-minute call from a BT landline to a geographic number costs 40p at most. But the same call can cost up to 1 to an 0870 or 0871 number, 60p for an 0845 number and 50p for an 0844 number.
Hi-tech IT firm NEG, which operates 0844 numbers for GPs, said some patients paid more, some paid less and some the same but that callers from mobiles could pay more depending on their providers' package.
More lines could be used during busy periods. Call duration was shorter, there was no engaged tone and if there was a queue callers were told where they were as they waited.
"We continually measure the service and the perception of the patient, and while there is of course a minority who don't like the system the vast, vast majority appreciate the improvement in service and would not wish to go back to the old way and the old number," said a spokeswoman.
The Mid Yorkshire trust, which runs hospitals in Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury, said its 0844 number cost five pence a minute from any landline in the country and enabled it to deal with more calls at any one time. Extra income earned had been used to improve its telephone systems.
Police chiefs last year urged forces to consider dropping 0845 numbers or at least to make it clear that callers were not being charged at the local rate.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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