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The hidden BT rip-off

23/8/2014

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Noting the further price rise announcement from BT today, we offer a briefing and comment on a rip-off that has long been in place and will now have a greater impact.

According to figures from the DWP, there could be around 5 million of its claimants, mostly pensioners, who are already paying too much to BT for their telephone calls to ordinary numbers.

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Companies continuing to use expensive numbers (in breach of regulations)

15/8/2014

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We today publish an updated briefing on cases of companies that appear to remain in breach of the Consumer Contract Regulations two months after they came into force on 13 June 2014.

The briefing identifies prominent examples of how alleged compliance may be mistaken.

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A further briefing on THE BIG FAILURE

6/8/2014

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Further to the previous blogging, we now publish a list of the NHS Bodies (and their contractors) in England that still remain in breach of the Directions issued by the Department of Health on 21 December 2009.

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Addendum - 7 Aug 2014

Please note that the previously published list of 350 GPs must be supplemented by those who do not declare their breach of contract on NHS Choices - see these examples.

An item on You and Yours today covered the issues and a case of a practice which had misunderstood the requirements and unnecessarily incurred costs as a result of terminating its telephone service contract early.

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Prohibition of use of expensive telephone numbers - the big failure

4/8/2014

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The fair telecoms campaign has long been pressing for prohibition of the use of expensive numbers in a number of areas, where such regulation is possible. Some success has been achieved:

Use by government departments and other public sector services
Cabinet Office Guidance has been published and achieved a high degree of compliance from central government departments. Many local government and other public bodies have however not yet moved to follow this guidance.
Use by businesses for contact from existing customers
Many businesses have moved to comply with regulations that came into force on 13 June 2014, although there are some notable exceptions.
Use by the financial services sector for customer contact
It was hoped that the financial services sector would be covered by parallel regulations to those which came into effect on 13 June, however the Financial Conduct Authority failed to achieve this. It is planning to introduce some form of regulation in 2015. Some banks have announced an intention to switch away from expensive numbers, but generally have not (yet) put this into effect.

THE BIG FAILURE - Use by NHS GPs and NHS bodies
GP contract changes were introduced and guidance was issued to NHS bodies in 2010. This should have led to the end of use of expensive numbers to access NHS services in England and Wales no later than 1 April 2011. Compliance has however been very poor and enforcement action non-existent.