SayNoTo1890.com

According to the response to my Freedom of Information request last month, ComReg have told me that they in fact don’t make any money from their 1890 customer help lines.

This is contrary to the comments from a ComReg member of staff in an e-mail that I had sight of back in August.

When I get the scanner working, I’ll upload the ComReg FOI response details.

Back in August I mentioned that I’d seen an e-mail from a ComReg insider who said:

The Locall number we advertise is a minor source of revenue for us – the bulk comes from levies imposed on those firms we regulate.

Given how 1890 numbers are supposed to operate (you don’t normally make money from them), this confused me a little, so I decided to try to find out more.

Well, on October 9th I’m due to receive a response from ComReg to a Freedom of Information request asking for the details of how much exactly they do make from these 1890 numbers.

Updates to follow, hopefully.

Sarah McInerney and Jan Battles
The Sunday Times, September 27th, 2008

ASAI set to call on ComReg to investigate pricing anomoly

“LO-CALL” numbers, set up by state agencies and businesses to save callers money, cost up to 49c a minute when dialled from a mobile phone.

The cost of phoning 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers is shared by businesses, but only if the caller is on a landline. Because mobile phone operators treat these numbers as “non-standard calls”, consumers are being charged at normal rates and don’t get to use their minute allowance. As a result, it is much cheaper to call a business’s normal landline instead of the supposedly low-cost alternative.

The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) is to raise the anonmaly with ComReg, the telecommunications regulator. “There is definitely an issue here of consumer knowledge, and we will be having a discussion with ComReg about it,” said Orla Twomey, its assistant chief executive.

In a bid to help mobile phone users circumvent lo-call numbers, Diarmuid MacShane, a consumer watchdog, has established Saynoto1890.com. “The 1890 numbers were set up to allow consumers call national businesses at local rates,” he said. “This works fine if you call from a landline. For example, the Eircom lo-call rate is about 5c per minute. Yet mobile phone companies are charging much more for the same call. It defeats the purpose of having a lo-call number.”

MacShane has found alternative landline numbers for the Financial Regulator, the Data Protection Commissioner and ComReg. “I’ve just managed to get a normal landline number for e-Flow,” he said.

He has also posted a list of prices charged by different mobile companies for phoning to lo-call numbers. Vodafone is the most expensive — its pre-pay customers are charged 49c per minute during peak times for a call to an 1890 number. The cost for “pay monthly” customers ranges from 18-35c.

O2 customers are charged 35c per minute for lo-call numbers, while Meteor’s are levied at 15c per minute.

Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland, has criticised mobile phone companies’ refusal to include lo-call numbers in minute bundles. “The onus needs to come heavily on mobile providers to change their package deals,” he said. “Now that ComReg is aware of this, I would be surprised if something was not done.”

In its defence Vodafone said that “mobile offers the mobility that landline customers do not benefit from. It is important when considering value to the customer to consider the overall pricing structure rather than one price in particular”.

O2 said it charges a flat rate of 35c per minute to “ensure transparency” and the exclusion of some non-standard calls from bundled minutes on price plans is “standard industry practice”.

Meanwhile the National Consumer Agency has begun an investigation after O2 customers discovered that account upgrades they had earned had been revoked. Dozens of users found that the upgrades had disappeared when they went to use them.

The customers have been told that the eligibility criteria had changed and they need to spend more money on calls if the upgrade is to be reinstated.

One user on Talk2O2, the company’s online forum, said: “If I had been told by the customer service agent who gave me the reference number that the upgrade was only going to be valid for two weeks, I would have upgraded immediately.”

O2 said: “It is standard industry practice to review and update criteria [for mobile phone upgrades] on an ongoing basis. Such reviews result in both increased and decreased entitlements to upgrading customers depending on the time of review.”

The company said anybody who rang customer care, or was called by customer care to advise them they were eligible for an upgrade in the last 90 days, is still entitled to it. Customers entitled to an upgrade but who did nothing about it have lost out.

For some reason that doesn’t make sense to me yet, whenever you make a call to ComReg, be it looking for information or trying to complain about something, you’re helping ComReg make money for themselves. They’re there supposedly to be of service to consumers, yet you call them and they make money from your phone call.

From a SayNoTo1890.com reader, we were provided with the following snippet of an e-mail from a ComReg employee:

The Locall number we advertise is a minor source of revenue for us – the bulk comes from levies imposed on those firms we regulate.

If that’s the case, I wonder how much money other Government organisations are making from making us consumers ring them on their 1890.

I say I don’t understand this because normally businesses who have these 1890 numbers end up paying the balance of whatever the call would cost. It’s normally only 0818 numbers that a business would make money one.

A reader has been in contact with us regarding their communication of their displeasure regarding 1890 and 1850 call to with ComReg.

A couple of items came from this communication - including the following ridiculous last line:

Should you have any other queries or require any other assistance from me you can call our Consumer Team on 1890 229668.

However. earlier in the e-mail, they did provide an alternative geographical number for anyone wishing to contact ComReg:

• ComReg 1890 229 668 - Call 01 8049600

The Government page has been updated above.

Unlike their regulator counterparties IFSRA and NCA, the much maligned ComReg do provide an 01 alternative number for consumers and business alike to call.

For General Queries contact:-

• Telephone: + 353 1 8049600 or LoCall Number: 1890 22 9600