Premium rate watchdog launches 'Am I being ripped off?' text line

PhonepayPlus, the daftly-named regulator formerly known as Icstis, has set itself the tall task of rebuilding trust in the premium rate industry. A new text service for consumers will check whether a top rate line is dodgy or not. The watchdog already provides a similar service through its website, where you can query hefty …

[Stu Wilson]

070 numbers

I have to say I'm heartily sick of these. I get 3 or 4 of these a week to any of my 3 phones (work mob/home mob/home landline) sometimes late at night and since I'm 365/24 support, they get my goat smeggin' rotten.

I'd say I wish the phone operators should place a block on these, except they never would as that would a loss of revenue, the horror! or they'd place some outlandish charge on my monthly account to take care of them.

[Mike Penton]

great!

how much does this service cost...??!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 070 numbers - from an 070 number owner

Hi.

Not my fault they decided to lump them in with the mobile numbers. Complain to the company who assigned the number block, not the people who have the numbers.

They're an incredibly good way of letting me keep the same phone number for EIGHT YEARS whilst going through several house moves / mobile number changes / etc.

Most of the time I call my customers back anyway when they call me. No revenue generation here - just portability and continuity, which is ace. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

from another 070 number owner

I have been using this service now for over 8 years too, and for me as a freelance consultant, it is absolutely brilliant!

The suplier I use forwards calls to over 100countries worldwide (landlines mostly but within Europe and some other countries also mobiles) at no cost to me.

I travel through out the entire world and as you can imagine, the roaming charges would be an absolute killer.

Before I had this number, I had monthly phone bill of around £500-700. of which around 90% were roaming charges.

I depend on agencies being able to get hold of me, as well as direct customers.

I am registered with about 3500 Agencies worldwide.

If I had to inform everybody around the world of number changes whether it be landline or mobile, I'd have to employ a PA just for that task.

Like this people can get hold of me, most of them are even warned about the call charges before they are connected and when they get hold of me, I am more than happy to give them my current number.

And if somebody says it's too expensive to phone me, I am sure it can't be that urgent then.

[Alan Gregson]

@Mike Penton

How much does the service cost?

Did you actually read the article?

"consumers can run a number against its database on the move, by texting it to 76787.

Texts are charged at the standard network rate."

Paris 'cos she can't read either...

[Anonymous Coward]

waste of space

"PhonepayPlus reckons its database covers 95 per cent of all fixed line and shortcode numbers" These people are a waste of space. Presumably the 5% in the too difficult tray are the scammers, whom the stupidly named people are meant to be crushing out of existence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 070 Incredibly good

"letting me keep the same phone number for EIGHT YEARS"

Fine, but its YOU, not your callers, that is responsible for you changing your facilities, so its YOU, not your callers, that should be required to pay any extra cost over and above a standard rate call.

[anonymous sms]

76787 scam alert!

So another dodgy sounding premium rate company is offering another dodgy phone service at 12p a pop.

[Anonymous Coward]

We may be unwashed over here in 'merica...

...but I've gotten - let's see - three spam SMSes in seven years of mobile phone use.

Muahahaha.

[Cris Page]

Much ado about nothing.

Its a shame Phonepay Plus cant apply the same energy to sorting out the scams.(still think that stupid name makes them sound like a scamming outfit)

It is time we were able to opt out of premium rate texts receipt, that would kill the scam dead in its tracks.

I guess the loss of revenue scares the networks and government who by their lack of action are complicit in this fraud.

I know enough to recognise a non mobile 07 number - but its time these were moved into their own range - removing any confusion and the need to pay to check how much of a rip off it is

Nothing to see here people... move along.

STOP because the stop command often doesnt work!

[b166er]

Eh?

What's all this about having to change a mobile number?

I've had the same mobile number for 8 years.

If you want a portable landline number, aren't you better off with Vonage?

Fill me in.

[Morely Dotes]

Let me try to grasp this...

You have premium rate numbers that are in the same prefix section as ordinary users' numbers...

And you apparently don't have number portability; that is, here in the USA, once a number is assigned to me or my business, I can take that number with me wherever I go (mobile, at least; obviously, if I move my business to a different area code, I don't think I can take a complete 10-digit landline number with me).

Frankly, the whole concept is baffling. The UK and Europe are usually so far ahead of the USA on technology of this sort, that I'm left wonder if Paris Hilton managed to get a job designing your dialing system.

[Neil Alexander]

Re: 070 numbers

Ofcom suggest that you aren't supposed to be using 070 numbers for premium rate stuff anyway, but number portability only.

They even have a section on the website for their criteria of appropriate use! Cute.

"3. The National Telephone Numbering Plan (‘the Plan’) states that there are three essential requirements re use of 070 Telephone Numbers:

...

Part B3.2 states that the numbers from the 070 range must not be used for Premium Rate Services (defined in the ‘Definitions and Interpretation’ Section of the Plan)

..."

[Steven Burn]

May aswell ....

... add my 0.2p

I've been tracking scammers using the 07, 08 and SMS premium numbers for a while now, and have dealt with PhonePayPlus, who to be perfectly honest, were and continue to be, utterly useless.

This new service from them is also guaranteed to prove absolutely useless as it can only provide what they have in their database. Usually this is ONLY the name of the provider (for researchers such as myself this may be useful, but for Average Joe, this is not going to help).

In my experience, it's much easier to get scammers shut down by going directly to the provider involved (aslong as it's not Open Telecom, as all they'll do is tell you to go and report it to the Police - who incidentally, also won't do anything, or Opal Telecom, who don't even seem to know how to reply).

I've had the distinct pleasure of shutting down a plethora of scammers without wasting my time with PPP.

@ Those above that claim they need to use these services - thats utter tosh. There are alternatives that you can give to clients and customers, that won't cost them a fortune (0845 anyone? - costs local rate, and there's an international one thats similiar to this)

[James Weston]

Shortcodes suck!

Why a short code?! Surely for a premium rate regulator it should be offering a standard 077x 'mobile' number. Most networks do not include short codes in their inclusive texts allowance.

We need another website, first there was No to 0870, now we need No to Shortcodes!

[Frank Bough]

Morely

...we do indeed have mobile number portability, so I've no idea why you'd need an 070 just to achieve that. 8 years? I've had my number since 1991! Cellnet - Orange - One2One - Orange - Vodafone.

[Chris Rogers]

Virgin Media

I've just tried that number you quoted in the article (09062121111) on their online checker at http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/numberchecker/ and got the following response:

PhonepayPlus has the following information about the number 09062121111.

* The number offers a technical support line for broadband internet. This is promotod through various sources, including magazines, the internet and television, and you use it with you telephone or mobile phone.

* This service costs 25p per minute (plus any phone network surcharges - check with your phone company for full details).

If you would like to find out more about this service or have a question about it you should contact the company that provides this service which is listed below.

NTL Group Ltd

ntl House

Bartley Wood Business Park

Hook

Hampshire

RG27 9UP

Tel: [phone]

So either there is a discrepancy between their online database and their text service database or else they read El Reg and rushed to update it!