A SayNoTo1890 reader has contacted us to see if anyone has a geographical alternative number for the Bord Gais Networks Leak Report number – 1850 20 50 50 .
If you know of a number, or if you work for Bord Gais and know how to get through to this number via a normal telephone number, please e-mail us through the Contact Page and we’ll share it with everyone else.
We won’t tell anyone where we got the number from.
Many thanks to the SayNoTo1890 reader who sent us in these geographical alternative numbers for a few Tesco stores. If you have any other numbers, please e-mail us through the Contact Page and we’ll share them with everyone else.
Tesco Clondalkin
- 1890 928 440 – Call 01 459 3393
Tesco Crumlin Shopping Centre
- 1890 928 433 – Call 01 453 1263
Tesco Merrion Centre
- 1890 928 471 – Call 01 283 8274
This question came through to the website some time ago, questioning why we were so much against 1890 numbers, and what a business could use instead.
I was on Google looking for info regarding 1890 numbers and stumbled across your website. Never one to go with the flow like a dead fish, I’ve decided to see what you can suggest other than an 1890 number.
The response, and our point with SayNoTo1890.com is there there’s no benefit any more in so called “lo call” or “call save” numbers so businesses should just provide their normal geographical telephone number for their customers to use.
Though 1890 and 1850 numbers could be viewed as marketing tools, we try to highlight to businesses that it could cost their customers more to actually get in touch.
There’s been a few e-mails sent to the site over the past couple of weeks looking for a geographical alternative for Sky Television. This seems to be one of the best kept secrets in the country at the moment – the only number they provide is the expensive 0818 number.
I’m wondering the direct number for SKY TV is I’m having terrible trouble with their service and have been kept on hold for ages during calls, and am nearly always on for 35-40 minutes on an 0818 number. Does anyone have the alternative number I can call?
And another:
I am from Ireland and live in the United States at the moment. My mother has recently had a hip replacement operation and is confined to home more often. I would like to order sky multiroom for her as a present but I cant get in contact with the Irish sales team because the number presented on the website is for Irish calls only (0818).
Can you please supply me with a number I can dial from overseas please? I have tried contacting Sky via email but to no avail.
We’ve been asked for this geographical phone number a couple of times in the past, but it seems as if there either isn’t such a number, or it’s very well protected by SKY.
Do you have a geographical alternative number for SKY? Or do you even work for SKY and know how your customers might be able to avoid using this 0818 number? Please e-mail us through our Contact Page if you do (privacy guaranteed).
If for any reason you’re in the United Kingdom, or anywhere else outside Ireland, and you need to call an 1890, 1850, 1800 or 0818 number, then this is the site for you also.
Many of the numbers on this site are provided under the “calling from abroad” section of companies websites anyway – though maybe not made all that easily available in many cases.
Don’t forget to put the +353 before the numbers we’ve published here.
A reader has asked us, and you all as well, if there is a geographical alternative anywhere available for Imagine Broadband Customer Care? The offending number on their website is 1890 92 93 94.
Do you have an alternative number? Drop me an e-mail through the Contact Page if you do and I’ll publish here to share with everyone else.
A reader has asked us, and you all as well, if there is a geographical alternative anywhere available for Aer Lingus? The offending number on the Aer Lingus site is 0818 365 044.
There used to be a number available on this site, but it stopped working earlier this year
So, do you have an alternative number? Drop me an e-mail through the Contact Page if you do and I’ll publish here to share with everyone else.
Recently, I published this listing of companies that are very careful to make sure that no geographical alternative numbers can be found for their 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers.
That’s sort of understandable for companies who provide 0818 numbers since they’re making money from our phone calls to them.
Still, we want to save money for ourselves when making these calls rather than further boosting the profits of the companies involved, so we need to find geographical alternatives for those companies.
So, if you work for a company that does have a geographical alternative number that could be called instead of their published 1890, 1850 or 0818 numbers, we’d love to hear from you.
You can use our contact pages to let us know the numbers, or post a comment on the site. I won’t reveal where I got the information from if you want to keep your privacy. There have already been a series of numbers provided to this site from insiders working for the company concerned without any issues.
We’d love to hear from you if you have numbers that can help us all save some cash on these calls.
Irish News of the World
Sunday March 29th, 2009
Diarmuid MacShane
Say No To 1890, 1850 and 0818 Call Costs
If you find yourself dialling an 1890 or 1850 number for a company, then you’re the one who should really be getting the wake up call.
Despite being called Lo-Call or Call Save numbers, you could find yourself paying up to 49c per minute to make a call that’s normally advertised as 5c per minute.
And worse, if you’re calling an 0818 number, then the company on the other end of the line are actually making money from your call. So, for these companies, it’s financially worth their while to keep you on the phone as long as possible, even if you’re making a complaint.
Lo Call and Call Save numbers were originally set up before mobiles came along to give consumers a number that would cost the same to call no matter where they were in the country compared to the location of the company.
But with the advent of mobile phones, and inclusive minute bundles on both landlines and mobile packages, they’re really just an excuse for the telecoms companies to print money.
This is done by excluding calls made to these numbers from your inclusive minute bundles you have with your phone contract – you basically pay extra from these calls no matter how many “free” minutes you get every month. And if you’re calling from a mobile phone, your Lo Call or Call Save number will cost you up to 9 times more than from a land line.
With the massive growth in the use of mobile phones in Ireland since these numbers were originally set up, less and less of us are making any calls from landlines. So more and more of us are getting stung by these ridiculous call charges, greatly adding to the mobile phone company profits.
It’s a poor show for many Irish companies and the customer service they provide when many don’t seem to realise the cost to their customers by only providing 1890 or 1850 contact numbers. And obviously, for companies providing 0818 numbers, they’re consciously trying to make an extra buck when you call them – taking a cut of the outrageous costs charged by the mobile companies.
And what’s worse, even though this country is riddled with regulators and government and so-called independent watchdogs, no one wants to know about this blatant rip off.
In the past, I’ve made complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland, but they don’t want to know. They tell me to speak to ComReg who say it’s nothing to do with them. The National Consumer Agency say it’s nothing to do with them and pawn you off on the Competition Authority or the Consumers Association of Ireland. They merely published a letter in their magazine, while the Competition people said that there’s nothing for them to investigate.
Fine Gael have recently highlight the issue with these Lo Call and Call Save numbers – and in particular, highlighting the fact that many Government departments only providing these contact numbers.
So what can you do?
SayNoTo1890.com is a website set up to provide you with the “geographical alternative” numbers for many of these 1890, 1850 and 0818 telephone numbers.
A geographical alternative number is an 01, or 021 or 091 number that you can call instead of the Lo Call or Call Save numbers, but still get through to the company.
By calling these numbers, you’ll either save money by having the minutes used on the call taken from your minutes bundle on your phone contract, or at least you’ll only end up paying the 5-6c per minute rather than 35-49c.
Most of Irelands biggest companies are included in the website with geographical alternative numbers provided – including most of the banks, mobile phone and energy companies.
How can you help?
If you know of a geographic alternative phone number to any 1890, 1850 or 0818 numbers, then visit SayNoTo1890.com and share it with everyone else.
Even better, if you work for a company that only provides one of these numbers but you know an alternative, contact me at the website and I’ll share the number with everyone while maintaining your privacy.
Given that some surveys of the worst offenders when it comes to companies keeping people hanging on show that you could be on hold for anything from 10 minutes to an hour, you could be saving yourself a small fortune on your phone costs – especially since we should really be paying those high costs at all.
Many thanks to everyone who has visited the site and contacted me since the article in last Sundays Irish News of the World. For those that haven’t seen the article, I’ll publish it in the coming days.
If you like what you see here on SayNoTo1890.com, you can sign up for regular updated. Check here to see how to get updates via e-mail or through an RSS reader. Alternatively, you could sign up for updates via Twitter – check here for more .
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