SayNoTo1890.com

From some e-mails we’ve received today, plus some research we’ve done ourselves this evening, here are some other alternative numbers for some well known companies.

ViVAS Call Centre – 1850 717 717 – use 01 6193620 instead
VHI – 1850 44 44 44 – use 056 7753200 instead
Bord Gais Energy Supply - 1850 632 632 – use 01 8190395 instead
ESB Customer Supply - 1850 372 372 – use 018529534 instead
Bank Of Ireland Phone Banking - 1890 365 365 – use 01 4044470 instead
Vodafone Pay as You Go - 1850 20 87 87 – use 042 9385504 instead
O2 Speakeasy - 1850 601747 – use 061 203345 instead

As before, if you have any other suggestions, post a reply to this message, or e-mail us.

(First published on Value Ireland Blog on August 1st, 2007)

A good article here in the Irish Examiner by Paul Kelly about how consumers can end up spending more money when making calls to 1890 LoCall rather than less. Other numbers included in this analysis are Callsave 1850 and national 0818 calls.

The main reason that consumers end up paying more rather than less when making calls to such 1890/1850/0818 numbers from mobile phones and from landline providers like Eircom is because these calls are specifically excluded from minute bundles.

The journalist does show that there can sometimes be alternative numbers (local or national numbers) that consumers can call which would actually be part of their minute bundles and then wouldn’t incur extra costs.

Which is exactly what this site in the UK does - SayNoTo0870, where O870 is the UK equivalent of 1890. On this site, users provide alternative numbers to the 0870 number for users to call, and not incur excessive charges. There are different rules and issues in the UK, but the idea is pretty good.

So we in Value Ireland are going to do something similar. We’re going to publish as many local numbers for the popular companies which Irish consumers must call on a regular basis.

To kick things off, we’ll quote the suggestions provided in the article linked above:

AIB Phone Banking - 1890 242424 - use 01 6670024 instead
Ticketmaster Ireland - 0818 719300 - use 01 4569569 instead

A trick to finding these alternative numbers is to check a companies “Contact Us” page, and to look for a “From Abroad” number which is normally a local or national number rather than the 1890/1850/0818 numbers.

Do you have other alternative numbers that would work instead of these 1890/1850/0818 numbers? Post them here and we’ll keep track of them, or e-mail us.

(First published on Value Ireland Blog on July 31st, 2007)