Citizens Advice’s silly phone numbers game

Citizens Advice has a new 0844-prefixed national phone number which attracts premium charges.

SAYNOTO0870.COM can reveal, for free, that there is a way to avoid paying the fee. Citizens Advice has chosen to only advise only select customers about it, after they have paid up to 41 pence. And this is from an organisation that pledges to offer advice for free!

The secret

The number for the new helpline is 08444 111 444. When dialled from a mobile phone, callers are advised that they can avoid the charges of up to 41 pence per minute by redialling 0300 330 0650.

Unlike the 0844 number, calls to it will come from any bundled minutes. But, in order hear about this alternative, callers will have to spend up to 41 pence! This is because it isn’t promoted anywhere else.

Citizens Advice keeps secret from landline callers the existence of this cheaper way of making contact as they don’t get to hear the message at all. Not only that, but if you ring the 0300 number from a fixed line, you will be told that it is for the exclusive use of callers using mobile phones.

• If you need to ring Citizens Advice from your mobile, dial 0300 330 0650 instead.


• If you have a landline and are thinking of using it to call the 0844 number, you may well find it cheaper to ring the 0300 number from your mobile, especially if it gives you inclusive minutes.


• For the Welsh speaking, the published number is 0844 477 2020. It too has a cheaper mobile-only counterpart which is 0300 456 8356.

Not to be outdone, individual bureaux sport their own 0844 numbers and, until now, unpublished 0300 mobile-only numbers as well. Some of these can be found in this PDF document.

Non-transparent call charges

Citizen’s Advice states, of its 0844 numbers, that calls “will be charged at five pence per minute from a landline and may cost considerably more from mobile and other phones.”

It really should get its own house in order before criticising others!

All calls to 0844 numbers attract Service Charges, for the benefit of numbers users (service providers). The telephone companies we make our calls with then add on their own Access Charges to these.

The Service Charge on the most common 0844 numbers (including those used by Citizens Advice) is around 5 pence per minute. So a call made from a mobile phone that costs 41 pence per minute imposes an Access Charge of 36 pence per minute.

The Access Charge of a landline provider that charges 13 pence per call plus 10 pence per minute is 13 pence plus 5 pence for every minute.

Calls from BT lines attract a tiny tiny Access Charge which is held low by regulation. This is why, when combined with the Service Charge, ringing Citizens Advice’s numbers costs 5.105 pence per minute plus a 12.5 pence Call Set-up Fee. This means that BT’s rates vary rather than others varying from BT’s.

So Citizens Advice’s statement is hardly being clear about what callers will pay:

• It claims that they will pay less than cheapest call rate in the market.


• It says that mobile and other calls “may cost considerably more” than the alleged landline rate. The truth is that the quoted rate is certainly considerably less.

Hypocritical

• Citizens Advice says that one of its key principles is to offer advice for free. But through its use of 0844 numbers, it benefits to the tune of around 5 pence per minute for its service.


• In its response to the Ofcom consultation on the future of non-geographic phone numbers earlier this year, Citizens Advice said that it strongly supports the regulator’s proposal to improve price transparency. Yet it isn’t open about the amount it costs to ring it.