SayNoTo1890.com

Thanks to the SayNoTo1890.com reader who sent us the geographical alterative number for the DHL Parcel Service. It’s here, plus updated on the Other page above.

DHL Parcel Service

• 1890 725 725 - Call 01 8700700

I have an idea for a browser extension / plug-in related to the SayNoTo1890.com website. Not having the technical skills myself, I thought I’d see if there’s someone out there who might be able to help.

As I don’t make any money from this site (not enough to cover hosting and domain expenses at least), this would be non-paying work, but wherever possible credit would be given to whomever can come up with a final working solution that we could offer to SayNoTo1890.com site users - and web users in general.

My idea is as follows:

• SayNoTo1890.com and its users compiles a listing of geographical alternatives to the 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers provided by many Irish organisations as their primary contact point.
• The benefit of these geographical alternatives is that they allow consumers who have minutes bundles and packages on their landline and mobile avoid the sometime enormous cost per minute to call these numbers.
• The requirement is to construct a browser extension / plug-in that would provide the geographical alternative on screen for all these organisations beside where they provide an 1890, 1850 or 0818 number on their own website where such an alternative is available within the SayNoTo1890.com site.

A mock-up of what I’m thinking about is included in the screen-shot below.

If you think this is something that you can help out with, or if you’d like any further information, drop me an e-mail here.

Check out this RTE.ie Consumer Advice article which claims to provide you with “10 tips to help you save on your phone bill”. SayNoTo1890.com gets a mention:

Avoid non-geographic numbers

Most inclusive calls packages (such as BT Talk Plus) include all calls made to fixed (geographic) numbers, and exclude calls made to non-geographic numbers (ie 1890). If you need to call a non-geographic number, try to find out the geographic number for the business you are calling and dial that number instead. This can be obtained directly from the company itself or by visiting websites such as http://www.saynoto1890.com/ (Republic of Ireland) or www.saynoto0870.com (UK).

Most of the tips are quite useful - so the only reason I say “claims” is because I think that the original article was inspired by a BT press release - mentioned here in the Irish Independent as well. Some of the tips are really just pure advertising for BT products - such as the mention of their “Call Mobile” package.

Thanks to the reader who texted in the geographical alternative number for Buy & Sell. The details are as follows:

Buy & Sell

• 0818 43 43 43 - Call 01 01 6080808

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Thanks to the reader who submitted the geographical alternative for Aer Lingus Reservations - a number which we thought for some time there was no alternative number for.

• Aer Lingus Reservations 0818 365000 - Call 01 886 8888

Back in the early days of SayNoTo1890.com, I wrote this post where I’d noticed that some government quangos were not providing geographical alternatives for their consumer helplines, but that they did provide such alternatives for corporate helplines.

At the time, the two culprits were the National Consumer Agency and the Financial Regulator.

Following an e-mail from a reader this week who provided us with a geographical alternative for NERA (the National Employment Rights Authority), I noticed that their contacts page had the very same situation.

Information
NERA Information Service Lo-Call 1890 80 80 90*

So, normal employees and consumers are subjected to having to use this 1890 number, but corporates get to call a normal geographical phone number.

Corporate enquires
Telephone: +353 59 917 8800

Why is it that consumers are treated differently in this way, and put at a possible disadvantage - as even they recognise by using the *

• Note that the rates charged for the use of 1890 (LoCall) numbers may vary among different service providers.

Why not just provide another 059 number, as our reader found for us?

Thanks to the reader of SayNoTo1890.com who sent us in the geographical alternative for the National Energy Assessors (NEA.

• National Energy Assessors (NEA) 1890 793 793 - Call 096 79477

The Other page above has been updated also.