RIP-OFF 0870 PHONE NUMBERS

Emergency helpline numbers will be FREE in future after families complained they were charged up to 40p a minute in the wake of the 7/7 London bombings. Police minister Hazel Blears set up a review after phone firms accused the Home Office of being too mean to set up free 0800 numbers. Rip-off 0870 numbers used by Government departments, the BBC and leading companies are now to be banned. Callers to these numbers are charged just under 8p a minute, more than double the standard 3p charged by BT.

Companies which use them take a slice of the profits and some deliberately keep customers on hold to increase their income. Consumers spent £1.25bn in 2003 calling 0845 and 0870 numbers used by call centres, almost a fifth of all fixed-line revenues. This is Money and the Financial Mail have long campaigned for a crackdown on the costly charges, after exposing the abuse of the premium rate phone number by a doctor's surgery. Thousands of household names use 0870 numbers, including Alliance & Leicester, Barclaycard, Dell computers, GUS and even the DVLA and Citizens Advice.

It appears that the Home Office has 19 of the 0870 lines while the DVLA makes a profit of £1.1m a year from callers to its numbers. The Foreign Office telephone line for callers looking for information on international danger zones is an 0870 number. Ofcom announced that it plans to ban companies and the Government from taking a share of the call cost. This should bring down the price paid by the public for 0870 calls to 3p a minute. Ofcom also ruled that in future users of 0871 numbers must spell out the 10p charge to all callers through advertisements and with a recorded message. (Source: Mail on Sunday)