Should premium rate phone numbers be abolished?

[py_megapixel]

As far as I can see, there is no point in premium rate numbers being a thing at all.

In the modern age they seem to be primarily used by scammers, and also occasionally by customer service lines. The former is a business (if one could even call it that) that has no place in society anyway.

The latter really ought to be using regular phone numbers and funding their customer service department from their sales, as most companies do - I for one find a company which uses premium rate numbers very off-putting, and it's very uncommon now anyway.

The only semi-legitimate use I can see for them is things like phone-in competitions for TV and radio (increasingly rare) as well as the likes of gambling services, which I wouldn't be too distressed to see the back of.

I want to stress that these are my personal opinions, and I'm well aware that others will have contradicting ones, but - any thoughts on this matter?

 

[BluePenguin]

I agree, they don’t really have much of a purpose anymore. They are open to misuse and difficult to regulate. However, a large number of entertainment businesses make a lot of money out of this very lucrative industry. Babestation, quiz channels and psychic lines in particular have been very popular recently with people bored and stuck at home.

Back in the day, a channel called Quiz Mania was hosted by Greg Scott. I have fond memories from my childhood from when I was allowed to stay up at the weekend, laughing at the various hilarious answers drunk people called into the show with. He later voiced the recent Thameslink and “trains passing through the station may cause turbulence” announcements.

Of course, there are much better things you could be spending your money on than calling these rip-off entertainment services, although people are free to make their choice whether it is the right or wrong one in other peoples eyes. Especially in these difficult times, so long as there is a market to entertain, satisfy and amuse people these premium rate services will stay!

 

[GusB]

As far as I can see, there is no point in premium rate numbers being a thing at all.

In the modern age they seem to be primarily used by scammers, and also occasionally by customer service lines. The former is a business (if one could even call it that) that has no place in society anyway.

The latter really ought to be using regular phone numbers and funding their customer service department from their sales, as most companies do - I for one find a company which uses premium rate numbers very off-putting, and it's very uncommon now anyway.

The only semi-legitimate use I can see for them is things like phone-in competitions for TV and radio (increasingly rare) as well as the likes of gambling services, which I wouldn't be too distressed to see the back of.

I want to stress that these are my personal opinions, and I'm well aware that others will have contradicting ones, but - any thoughts on this matter?

I'd be interested to find out what you view as a "premium rate" number.

 

[Tester]

The following is based on my recollection - those with expert knowledge please correct as appropriate.

I think it is sensible to make a distinction between 'blatant' (09xx) and 'stealth' (0845/087x) premium rate numbers.

The former are clearly identifiable, subject to rules, and can easily be blocked. I think it's fair to say that they are a known quantity - people can choose to use them knowing what they are doing.

The latter are a completely different kettle of fish. They started out innocuously, in an era where call costs (particularly long distance) were relatively high and 'inclusive minutes' were not a thing.

0845 calls were designed to be the complete opposite of premium rate - enabling calls to be made at local rate regardless of actual distance. When they were introduced 0800 numbers did not exist, only the Freefone concept, involving calling via the operator. I believe that 0845 was a lot cheaper than Freefone for organisations using them, and had the advantage of being 'automatic'.

087x calls came along later, charged at the national rate (but no more) and reinforced the concept of non-geographical numbers, giving organisations using them a national presence and enabling routing of calls to call centres in different places sharing a common number.

Thus far all the costs of these non-geographical services fell on organisations (principally commercial businesses), while any benefits accrued to callers.

At some point (I didn't notice at the time, and I suspect few others did either) things changed, and 0845/087x evolved into premium rate services, with opaque varying charges and revenue sharing between telcos and businesses - all at the caller's expense. Whole businesses evolved offering such services as intermediaries (so profit in there for them too!) - even including 'public services' such as National Rail Enquiries and doctors' surgeries. Considerable lobbying efforts were put into keeping things that way even after people twigged what was going on.

After much pushback and delay 0345/037x numbers were born, with 03xx numbers being made available to the holders of the equivalent 08xx numbers. The important difference being that 03xx numbers are charged in the same way as 01xx and 02xx (and most importantly counted as inclusive minutes) - and with no revenue sharing. Many organisations moved over (no doubt some more willingly than others) and the charging arrangements for those that didn't became more transparent.

The problem remains that there is a firm perception in customers' minds that 08xx numbers are not premium rate.

What I would like to see is that, as soon as possible, all 08xx calls are either free or no more expensive than an 01xx or 02xx call, with those businesses who want to try their luck making money out of callers being honest about it and moving to 09xx.

 

[Jamiescott1]

The 07 premium rate should be.
In my opinion they are designed into deceiving people into thinking they're mobile numbers

 

[Trackman]

The 07 premium rate should be.
In my opinion they are designed into deceiving people into thinking they're mobile numbers

Sometimes I receive dodgy 07 number missed calls on my mobile.
Can these scammers set up premium rate numbers to tempt you to call back?
And if so, if there some law protecting you against this?

 

[Harpers Tate]

I tend to agree that the issue here is one of ambiguity. By which I mean:
08 prefix is free if its 0800 but a "premium" if not.
And 07 is even more vague, with most 07 being regular mobile but a long list of 07s being "premium".
"Premium" in this case is anything that's not going to be charged at the same rate (whether per minute or inclusive, depending on your own terms) as 01 02 03 and most 07.

This is a C&P of the list from my supplier of 07 exceptions:
"Non Standard" 07 numbers
074060 / 074061 / 074062 / 074067 / 074176 / 074181 / 074182 /
074185 / 074411 / 074413 / 074414 / 074515 / 075200 / 075201 /
075203 / 075204 / 075205 / 075206 / 075207 / 075208 / 075209 /
075370 / 075371 / 075373 / 075375 / 075376 / 075377 / 075378 /
075379 / 075580 / 075581 / 075582 / 075590 / 075591 / 075592 /
075593 / 075594 / 075595 / 075596 / 075597 / 075598 / 075599 /
075710 / 075718 / 075890 / 075891 / 075892 / 075893 / 075898 /
075899 / 077000 / 077001 / 077442 / 077443 / 077444 / 077445 /
077446 / 077447 / 077448 / 077449 / 077552 / 077553 / 077554 /
077555 / 078220 / 078221 / 078223 / 078224 / 078225 / 078226 /
078227 / 078229 / 078644 / 078722 / 078727 / 078730 / 078744 /
078745 / 078920 / 078922 / 078925 / 078930 / 078931 / 078933 /
078938 / 078939 / 079111 / 079112 / 079117 / 079118 / 079245 /
079246 / 079780 / 079781 / 079782 / 079783/ 079784 / 079785 /
079786 / 079788 / 079789

IOM and Channel Islands
074184 / 074520 / 074521 / 074522 / 074523 / 074524 /
075090 / 075091 / 075092 / 075093 / 075094 / 075095 /
075096 / 075097 / 07624 / 077003 / 077007 / 077008 /
047781 / 077977 / 077978 / 077979 / 078297 / 078298 /
078299 / 047839 / 078391 / 078392 / 078397 / 078398 /
079240 / 079241 / 079242 / 079243 / 079244/ 079247 /
079248 / 079370 / 079371 / 079372 / 079373 / 079374 /
079375 / 079376 / 079377 / 079378 / 079379 / 07781

and 076, 070 (pager and personal numbers)

How on earth is anyone intended to know these without referring to that list.

That list all needs changing to another prefix. After all, 04, 05, 06 are vacant at the moment, I think.

 

[Dai Corner]

No, but consumer awareness probably needs to be raised.

How about a message when you dial other than an 01/02/03 or standard mobile number?

"This call will cost you X pence plus Y pence per minute. Please wait to be connected or hang up now if you don't wish to proceed".

 

[PeterY]

If I don't know the number, I won't answer it but only call back, if the caller leaves a message, I call back straight away if it's a genuine call.

To be honest it's a sad state of affairs that, I don't know who to trust, with all the scams .

 

[GusB]

The following is based on my recollection - those with expert knowledge please correct as appropriate.

I think it is sensible to make a distinction between 'blatant' (09xx) and 'stealth' (0845/087x) premium rate numbers.

The former are clearly identifiable, subject to rules, and can easily be blocked. I think it's fair to say that they are a known quantity - people can choose to use them knowing what they are doing.

The latter are a completely different kettle of fish. They started out innocuously, in an era where call costs (particularly long distance) were relatively high and 'inclusive minutes' were not a thing.

0845 calls were designed to be the complete opposite of premium rate - enabling calls to be made at local rate regardless of actual distance. When they were introduced 0800 numbers did not exist, only the Freefone concept, involving calling via the operator. I believe that 0845 was a lot cheaper than Freefone for organisations using them, and had the advantage of being 'automatic'.

087x calls came along later, charged at the national rate (but no more) and reinforced the concept of non-geographical numbers, giving organisations using them a national presence and enabling routing of calls to call centres in different places sharing a common number.

Thus far all the costs of these non-geographical services fell on organisations (principally commercial businesses), while any benefits accrued to callers.

At some point (I didn't notice at the time, and I suspect few others did either) things changed, and 0845/087x evolved into premium rate services, with opaque varying charges and revenue sharing between telcos and businesses - all at the caller's expense. Whole businesses evolved offering such services as intermediaries (so profit in there for them too!) - even including 'public services' such as National Rail Enquiries and doctors' surgeries. Considerable lobbying efforts were put into keeping things that way even after people twigged what was going on.

After much pushback and delay 0345/037x numbers were born, with 03xx numbers being made available to the holders of the equivalent 08xx numbers. The important difference being that 03xx numbers are charged in the same way as 01xx and 02xx (and most importantly counted as inclusive minutes) - and with no revenue sharing. Many organisations moved over (no doubt some more willingly than others) and the charging arrangements for those that didn't became more transparent.

The problem remains that there is a firm perception in customers' minds that 08xx numbers are not premium rate.

What I would like to see is that, as soon as possible, all 08xx calls are either free or no more expensive than an 01xx or 02xx call, with those businesses who want to try their luck making money out of callers being honest about it and moving to 09xx.

I think this more or less sums it up, but I'd like to add my own tuppence-worth. The re-organisation of telephone numbers in the late 90s/early 2000s into the 07/08/09 ranges was supposed to clarify matters, but as @Harpers Tate shows in their post above, things are far from clear today.

Back in the day, 0800 numbers were free, as were those beginning with 0500. "Lo-call" numbers began with 0345 or 0645 and were charged at local rate. 0345 was replaced by 08457 and (I think) 0645 was replaced by 08454 - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this. Now we've come full-circle and 0345 is back in vogue, albeit in 11-digit format!


I can't remember exactly when it was introduced, but 0990 emerged as a "national rate" number, ie calls to these should have been charged at the same rate as a long-distance/trunk call. I don't remember them being too common, but two examples were Scottish Citylink and National Express which had 0990 505050 and 0990 808080 respectively. The 0990 prefix was replaced by 08705.
"Premium rate" services used to start with 0898, 0831 etc. These numbers were then moved into the 09 range.

As for mobile numbers - where do we start?! My mobile number has an 07989 prefix (Orange originating). Before everything was reorganised this would have been 0989. 0585 was a BT Cellnet prefix, as was 0771. In some cases, conversion of mobile numbers to the then new 11-digit format was as simple as adding a "7" after the leading "0", but in others the new prefix was completely different. Before mobile call plans included "cross-network" minutes it was useful to know whether or not your friends were on the same network (this was what prompted me to go with Orange in the first place) as calls to other networks could be horrendously expensive. With number portability, this all went out the window.

I did a spell at Aberdeen DQ (Directory enQuiries) when these changes were going through. ONEday had been implemented five years before and the 02 number range had just been introduced so a fair number of our calls were related to code changes.

 

[johntea]

I won a rather decent chunk of money from those quiz channels back in the day - at a rough estimate in the region of £20,000 overall, the trick was the free web entry! I had a full folder full of the winner letters that they used to send with the cheques (yep, a lot of trips to the bank those days compared to the instant bank transfers of today!) but sadly I think I disposed of it when I moved house

This was mainly when ITV had a quiz channel on Freeview though, not certain other channels where they had some mathematical puzzle up for months on end that even Einstein would have struggled to solve! I should also point out the hours and hours I spent watching to build up a pot like that, but it was worth it as a *cough 17 not 18 year old but deep enough voice and good at blagging a date of birth cough* student

These days the 'free' entry route for competitions seems to be 'send snail mail to XYZ' which obviously isn't as free by the time you've shelled out on a envelope and stamp!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

These days the 'free' entry route for competitions seems to be 'send snail mail to XYZ' which obviously isn't as free by the time you've shelled out on a envelope and stamp!

Didn't ITV recently get fined a fairly large sum for routinely disregarding certain competition-related postal entries (which meant that those viewers who entered competitions in this way had zero chance of winning)?

 

[ta-toget]

Didn't ITV recently get fined a fairly large sum for routinely disregarding certain competition-related postal entries (which meant that those viewers who entered competitions in this way had zero chance of winning)?

Yes. The BBC reported on it (among others):

ITV breached broadcasting rules with several of its viewer competitions, media watchdog Ofcom has ruled.
Some viewers who participated in competitions using a postal entry had "no chance of being selected to win", Ofcom said.
Competitions on shows like Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, This Morning, Loose Women and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway were all involved.
More than 41,000 entries between 2016 and 2019 were affected.
Competitions on La Vuelta and X Factor: The Band were also found to be in breach of the broadcasting code.
ITV said it has put in place plans to improve its postal entry procedures and it intended to donate a sum of money to charity as a "mark of its sincere regret".

An Ofcom spokeswoman said: "Our investigation found that people who entered these competitions by post were excluded from the draw, with no chance of winning.
"ITV failed to follow proper procedures and this led to a clear breach of our rules, which require all broadcast competitions to be conducted fairly."
The broadcaster said the problem was a result of "human error by ITV staff" putting information on to a spreadsheet.
Competitions on ITV usually invite viewers to enter by phone, text message, the channel's website or by post.
Viewers are charged £2 to enter its competitions via text message, phone or online. Postal entries are usually free, although some require the purchase of a postage stamp.
This Morning was one of the shows investigated
ITV reviewed every broadcast competition it had conducted since 2014 after it discovered there had been an issue. This included competitions broadcast on sister networks like ITV2 and ITV4.
The broadcaster then referred itself to Ofcom, prompting the regulator to investigate.
ITV said it "deeply regretted" the errors and that the number of affected competitions represented fewer than 1% since 2014.
Ofcom said it recognised "the proactive way in which ITV dealt with the issue by notifying Ofcom and immediately setting about to determine the extent and cause of the problem".
But it said the broadcaster "failed to take reasonable care through its processes to ensure the competitions were conducted in such ways as to provide fair and consistent treatment of all eligible entries".
It's not the first time the broadcaster has found itself in hot water over its competitions.
ITV came in for criticism in 2007 after it was revealed that premium rate competitions and phone votes on series such as Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway were rigged.
Ofcom subsequently ordered ITV to pay £5.7m, a record sanction imposed on a broadcaster by the watchdog at the time.

 

[bussnapperwm]

I won a rather decent chunk of money from those quiz channels back in the day - at a rough estimate in the region of £20,000 overall, the trick was the free web entry! I had a full folder full of the winner letters that they used to send with the cheques (yep, a lot of trips to the bank those days compared to the instant bank transfers of today!) but sadly I think I disposed of it when I moved house

This was mainly when ITV had a quiz channel on Freeview though, not certain other channels where they had some mathematical puzzle up for months on end that even Einstein would have struggled to solve! I should also point out the hours and hours I spent watching to build up a pot like that, but it was worth it as a *cough 17 not 18 year old but deep enough voice and good at blagging a date of birth cough* student

These days the 'free' entry route for competitions seems to be 'send snail mail to XYZ' which obviously isn't as free by the time you've shelled out on a envelope and stamp!

Ah the days of Quizmamia and ITV Playalong.

I wonder if I'll find Rawl Plugs and a Balaclava in my girlfriends handbag

 

[BluePenguin]

Ah the days of Quizmamia and ITV Playalong.

I wonder if I'll find Rawl Plugs and a Balaclava in my girlfriends handbag

Haha 2 of the most obscure answers ever! I remember this is was reported on a lot at the time. Finding the answers to some of the other impossible quiz answers included solving maths questions. On the face of it, these were easily solved by anyone who knew BIDMAS although there was always more to it than it seemed.

The same callers would keep calling in again and again with more ridiculous answers every time, as their phone bills climbed ever higher. These “competitions” were a clever scam.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Dec 2020 ==

The days of these premium rate competitions having their own channels are long gone, but they are still around.

Did anyone see the word search competition advert which recently made an appearance in television over Christmas? A recorded monotone voice speaks non stop for the duration of the advert encouraging victims (sorry I mean, participants) to call an 09 telephone number to win £14,500. The caption reads that it costs £3.50 or so to call.

Another version aired back in October, the clue was a popular TV quiz show. The answer was Countdown which was horizontally on the second row of the grid, blindingly obvious for anyone with eyes to see.

The in-programme ITV competitions are the worst. Ring this number to win £70,000 and a brand-new mini. Has anybody ever heard of who wins these competitions? Because I certainly haven’t! Probably isn’t even a winner. Just another way for ITV to cash in on their low IQ viewers.

At least The Gadget Show on channel 5 shows the winner having their prize delivered....

 

[bussnapperwm]

Did anyone see the word search competition advert which recently made an appearance in television over Christmas? A recorded monotone voice speaks non stop for the duration of the advert encouraging victims (sorry I mean, participants) to call an 09 telephone number to win £14,500. The caption reads that it costs £3.50 or so to call.

Another version aired back in October, the clue was a popular TV quiz show. The answer was Countdown which was horizontally on the second row of the grid, blindingly obvious for anyone with eyes to see.

Ah yeah. I was bored the other day so I phoned one (I have a spare phone with nearly £100 in PAYG credit)...

...and when it asked for a phone number I gave them my own premium rate number. Might as well make a little profit from spammers!!!

 

[BluePenguin]

Ah yeah. I was bored the other day so I phoned one (I have a spare phone with nearly £100 in PAYG credit)...

...and when it asked for a phone number I gave them my own premium rate number. Might as well make a little profit from spammers!!!

Haha nice one! Wow that is a lot of spare credit ot have lying around. I am curious to know whether they have called you yet or not? I hope you win the competition and profit a huge chunk out of them

A few year ago I read an article about a man who was bombarded by unwanted calls and setup his own premium rate number to fight back. He apparently made a lot of money out of talking to various scammers and telesales people. As a cash strapped student I followed suit and did the same for a while. A company I found online had me setup within days. I made a few pounds out of it but hade to give it up as the calls eventually ran dry and I needed to focus on my studies. Filling in online surveys and consumer websites was beneficial in getting more calls.

Would you mind sharing more about your arrangement? Are you making much money out of your number? Feel free to PM if you would rather not broadcast the ins and outs of it.