SayNoTo1890.com

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?

From the research that I’ve done over the past couple of weeks, it seems like it’s not possible to call 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers from Skype.

At different times during the day, and using several different companies’ numbers, I got a couple of different responses to

Bank Of Ireland 1890 365 365 - Extension 33653 doesn’t answer. Your message cannot be delivered because that mailbox is full. Please dial another extension number. Goodbye.

Financial Regulator 1890 77 77 77 - Gets through to some random ladies home number after ringing out for a while.

Bord Gais 1850 632 632 - Comes back with “Invalid phone number”

NTL (Service) 1800 321 321 - Also comes back with “Invalid phone number”

So, if you have Skype and you need to call any of these 1890, 1850 or 0818 phone numbers, you will need to use the geographical alternatives provide here on www.SayNoTo1890.com.

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