This is NOT a hoax........ Please Read!!!

Yes this is not a hoax, but double sting. Harharhar!

After watching the advert on TV, I (how sad am I?) checked on the cost of

Hardly news. BT have offered this service (or rather, they've licensed it out) for years. It appears in the official BT Price List.

It is NOT a scam, but an advertised service. Bloody expensive, but legal and documented.

We used to get these calls from friends of my son, but kids playing pranks in general do it. It'll cost a shade under four quid each time.

Incidentally, if you begrudge the high cost of 0845 calls and the fact that BT's outsourced company get a bit out of that too, contact them via their website instead...I did and barred all five of our numbers, plus the four mobiles, all in one go.

See:

Yes.. daylight, legalised robbery! However, our teenage daughter regularly used this when she had no credit on her mobile. In the 1 second where her name was recorded, she managed to pass a short message for free. Then we hung up.

If a child calls home using 0800 reverse call, who can refuse? It's blackmail.

Apparently they get wise to that if you abuse it, and bar your number from receiving 0800 reverse calls.. which isn't necessarily a bad thing ;-)

Just by chance I've just been called by someone asking for a Mr Ajumah. The caller apologised, and hung up.

When I hit callback, it said

"Telephone number 08003 289 393 called today at ... press 3 to callback" then in a different voice "There is normally a charge for this service".

Apparently this number is BT's Indian call centre. Or possibly the BT Nuisance Call action line. Or maybe the Engineer's test centre...

I'll check my bill.

Andy

The "charge for this service" refers to the fact that you get charged (5p I think) if you hit 3 to dial the calling number. It's been like that for quite a while, but because it comes at the end of the message I suspect many people never get to hear it.

Andrew

ne call. Upon answering, a female voice

Why aren't these sorts of things opt-in, instead of opt-out? And do BT attempt to justify the cost? Why isn't it 10p per minute? Funny how banks get told how much they can charge people for getting overdrawn, but BT doesn't.

Useful, thanks!

I assume you just sent an email to snipped-for-privacy@0800reverse.co.uk ? If so, did you get a response? Have you been able to check that all your numbers have *really* been barred?

In message , the_constructor writes

I live in North London and nearly every night I got in to find a telephone message from an 0845 number telling me to call about an important business matter. I never was daft enough to call the "Premium Rate" number they quoted, but there are obviously a lot of scams still going on.

My golden rule is that unless it's family and friends, I don't return any calls.

Yes, and yes.

You mean 1471/Call Return ?

"Press 3 to return the call.There is normally a charge for this service"....... Thats normally the message you hear when it offers you Call Return .Anyone with sense writes down the number then dials it themselves of course .

Why do you need to check your bill.? Did you call the number .What makes you think it could be one of the 3 things you mention ?

Ta! [I assume that's yes, yes and yes - since there were 3 questions]

I'll have a go myself.

When I was a child we didn't have a telephone at home.

And a phone call in the box on the corner was 5p - a day's sweetie-money (two ounces of something weighed out by hand).

Kids nowadays, etc...

Even in the 1980s quite a few people didn't have phones where I lived in rural Wales - shortage of line plant.

Owain

Caller ID costs me £1 a month on my land line. Any number I don't recognise never gets answered

My telephone also has a memory and a LCD screen that can display the last 99 calls made to it

With the two combined I can monitor how many times the scam bastards - and of course, legitimate and licensed tele sales companies - ring my number

Cheers

Richard

Why would anyone in their right mind accept a reverse charge call anyway?

Caller Display can be obtained free from BT( usually £1.75 I believe no t£1) but you need to accept to register with Privacy At Home . Details Here

Someone on here once said when it came to giving the name, in order for their wife to know he was at the station and ready to be picked up, his name would simply be "I'm at the station".