Letter to BBC Breakfast
Dear Bill and Sian
I am shocked and extremely disappointed to see the following text on your on your website in relation to your 03 contact number:
“Calls cost no more than calls to 01/02 geographic numbers, although calls from mobiles will vary according to your provider.”
Worse still, the text which appears on the TV is even more inaccurate stating “Standard geographic charges apply. Calls from mobiles may be higher.”
Ofcom’s whole rationale for introduction of 03 numbers is clear and extremely simple:
Calls to 03 numbers cost no more than a national rate call to an 01 or 02 number and must count towards any inclusive minutes in the same way as 01 and 02 calls.
These rules apply to calls from any type of line including mobile, BT, other fixed line or payphone.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/features/03numbers
The BBC’s wholly inaccurate description of 0844 numbers as “Premium Rate” earlier in the year has had a dramatic effect on the supply of numbers, whose reputation had already been tarnished by the rapacious pricing policies of UK mobile network operators.
One result of its inability to effectively regulate the mobile sector’s unjustified additional charges for calls to 08 numbers (including 0800 “freephone”) was the introduction of 03 numbers which specifically disallow such pricing and oblige every Communications Provider to charge no more than the cost of a geographic call – irrespective of the network the caller is using.
Your reach and power to misinform the public and destroy a nascent market cannot be overstated.
The irresponsibility and incompetence is unacceptable and calls into question the rigour of your research and the reliability of stories reported on your programme.
This is basic stuff and the fact that you got it 100% wrong is deeply concerning.
Yours sincerely
Kieron James
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kieron James, Give the dog a bone. Give the dog a bone said: Letter to BBC Breakfast regarding the cost of calls to 03 numbers: http://tinyurl.com/y9k2b3s (attn: #Ofcom) [...]
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 am
Thank goodness for authoritative voices such as Give The Dog A Bone as clearly the BBC are incapable of researching and reporting accurately.
I for one was delighted to see the BBC using an 03 number for Children In Need this year and hoped at last the good word would be spread. To donate from my mobile and not be ripped off really was progress. Alas 1 step forward and 2 steps back…
How do the BBC manage to get something so simple so wrong??
It is a disgrace that such a powerful and influential “mouth piece” can be so misleading.
I suspect lazy research and lazy reporting, can anyone remind me who funds the BBC? Oh yes that would be us….
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 am
This is totally irresponsible reporting by the BBC and the damage caused to the reputation of the 03 number range is something that it may never recover from given the trust the British public has in the broadcaster.
As you mention Kieron, if this is the approach that the BBC take with all of their research, it certainly is troubling, and you have to wonder what other key pieces of information the researchers at the BBC forgot to tell us over the years.
Many people in the UK are already very confused about the cost of calling the various number ranges that are in use, with many of them having no idea how much a call is likely to cost them. In my opinion, all of this confusion and uncertainty would be avoided if Ofcom tackled the real culprits and shackled the mobile network operators to stop them charging whatever they want when their customers call 08 numbers.
The recent Ofcom mobile sector assessment was pathetic. To suggest that the current UK mobile market is serving UK citizens well is appalling. Here are some figures from my recent phone bill that tell the truth about how well I’m being served.
43 pence for a 3 second call to an 0800 number.
0800 numbers are free to call from landlines. The idea being that the recipient of the call pays for it. However, my mobile network provider feels that they are entitled to charge me 43 pence for a 3 second call on their network when the cost of the call has already been paid for by the recipient. Exorbitant isn’t the word!!
- 10 pence to send an SMS message.
On the face of it, 10 pence per message doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but when you consider that this equates to £1,400 per megabyte of data sent from our mobile devices, it really does stick in your throat.
The worst part is that the all of the network operators in the UK have equally exorbitant pricing structures, which goes to illustrate perfectly that competition does NOT ensure that British consumers are served well. In fact, the only people that are being served here are the mobile network operators – served a huge pile of cash by the UK consumers.
Now I’m sure you will agree that the practices mentioned above, that the mobile operators are ALLOWED to get away with, emphasises the importance of the 03 number range and how outrageous it is that the BBC misinform all of the viewers of their breakfast show about the cost calling of 03 numbers.
Shame on the BBC!!!
And my message to Ofcom? Go and pop your teeth back in and see to it that we get a fair deal from the mobile network operators instead of insulting us with assessments that lie to us by telling us everything OK when we all know it is not.
Lee.
December 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Thanks for the comments.
Just to clarify, this wasn’t a news item on Breakfast. It’s the lower third caption which appears on the screen when they ask viewers to call in.
It also appears on their website » here (apparently “last updated at 15:49 GMT, Wednesday, 13 February 2002″ – a long time before the introduction of 03 numbers).
January 15th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Lee: At least you can avoid being stung for your 0800 calls next time (if you use an iPhone) » » Make FREEPHONE free!