Press Release

High cost helpline rip-off

29 May 2008

In a report published today, Which? names and shames companies and government agencies that use expensive phone helplines* to make money at the expense of consumers.

More than 30 organisations are named in Which?’s ‘hall of shame’**, including Tiscali, British Gas and Barclays, and government agencies TV Licensing and the DVLA. They all use higher-charging 0871, 0870, 0844 or 0845 numbers for customer service or technical support lines.

Organisations that use these numbers can share the revenue from calls with the phone service provider. That means that the longer a customer stays on the line, the more the organisation earns.

Ofcom introduced 03 numbers last year, which cost the same as calling a geographic (01 or 02) number, and it plans to stop organisations making money from 0870 numbers. But none of the organisations checked by Which? had switched to 03, and some have simply switched from 0870 to other high cost numbers***.

Which? called customer helplines at broadband and utility companies and government agencies, to find out how long callers are kept waiting to speak to someone. British Gas, AOL and DVLA kept people hanging on longest, with average waiting times of around three minutes****. One call to AOL was held for over 15 minutes, at a cost of 75p from a BT landline.

The DVLA made £3.4 million from its 0870 number in the last financial year. It says it plans to switch to a cheaper number but it hasn’t said when. Which? wants all companies to switch their helplines and technical support from expensive numbers to cheaper 03, 0800 or geographic numbers.

Neil Fowler, Editor, Which? magazine, says:

“Why should you pay for the privilege of making a complaint or getting a problem fixed? It’s unacceptable that companies and government agencies can make big money from people calling helplines. Check if there’s a cheaper phone number or ask the company to refund the call cost – it’s the least they can do if you’re calling about a faulty product or bad service.”

* A ten minute call from a BT landline to a regular geographic number, such as 01, 02 or the new 03 code, costs 40p at most. But the same call can cost up to £1 to 0870 or 0871 number, 60p for an 0845 number, and 50p for an 0844 number.
** Hall of Shame – organisations that have expensive customer lines
0871: Admiral Insurance, Bell Insurance, Diamond Insurance, Elephant Insurance, Nikon, Tiscali
0870: Apple (tech support)^, Carphone Warehouse/Talk Talk, DVLA, Gladiator Insurance, Lexmark, Philips^, Sony, Zanussi-Electrolux
0844: AOL, Orange, Panasonic^, Sky (free for Sky Talk customers from July), TV Licensing
0845: Barclays, British Gas, Consumer Direct, Direct Line, Eon, Green Flag, Halifax, LloydsTSB, Miele, Npower, Philips^, Scottish and Southern Energy^, Scottish Power, TV Licensing, Virgin Media

Roll of Honour – organisations that have cheaper customer lines
0800: Apple (helpline)^, BT, Canon, Churchill^, Dyson, Norwich Union Direct, RAC, Scottish and Southern Energy
03: Passport Office (from August)
01/02: Panasonic^, Philips^, Toshiba

^ Has both normal and higher-rate numbers
*** Nikon and Tiscali have switched from 0870 to 0871 numbers, which are just as expensive to call.
**** Average waiting times to speak to someone were: AOL 3 min 4 secs; DVLA 3 min 16 secs; British Gas 2 min 50 secs.