SayNoTo1890.com

Back in April, we posted some observations from the UK about how their LoCall and CallSave equivalent numbers were being advertised - making them look like ordinary numbers rather than numbers that were likely to cause consumer pay extra in some cases.

My speculation back then was that it was possible that we could have the same thing here in Ireland with the 0818 range of numbers. By quoting the numbers as 081 8….. it might look like some other type of mobile number maybe.

And here’s the first example of that that I’ve seen (apologies again for the crappy photo quality - N95 phone strikes again):

As a comparison for prices, assume you’re an O2 mobile customer, and you think that this is just another mobile number (081) rather than the “universal access” number (0818).

Calling this number will cost you 35c per minute instead of being deducted from your bundle of minutes - and that could give you a nasty surprise on your bill.

The cost of calling 0818 numbers from most of the Irish telephone service providers is detailed here.