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Beware of 0844
I got a letter today from Alliance and Leicester.
They are apparently doing me a favour...
They've changed their 0870 and 0845 numbers to 0844 which costs a 6p connection fee and no more than 5p per minute.
That's compared (because I just looked it up) with the old 0870 which was 6p a minute and no connection fee (so I'm better off it it takes them more than 6 mins to solve my problem) and 2p a minute with 0845...
I'm not impressed with Alliance and Leicester's customer service in this regard. If I phone my bank, it's generally because I have a problem and the bank screwed up. I don't expect to be charged for solving problems that they created. (the last time I had to make a long phone call was because their web banking service didn't tell you that all references had to be in capitals - thus, I was unable to carry out any BACS payments)
They are apparently doing me a favour...
They've changed their 0870 and 0845 numbers to 0844 which costs a 6p connection fee and no more than 5p per minute.
That's compared (because I just looked it up) with the old 0870 which was 6p a minute and no connection fee (so I'm better off it it takes them more than 6 mins to solve my problem) and 2p a minute with 0845...
I'm not impressed with Alliance and Leicester's customer service in this regard. If I phone my bank, it's generally because I have a problem and the bank screwed up. I don't expect to be charged for solving problems that they created. (the last time I had to make a long phone call was because their web banking service didn't tell you that all references had to be in capitals - thus, I was unable to carry out any BACS payments)
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Most institutions will have a geographical number, calls to which are likely to be included in people's call packages. The non-geographical numbers are usually either the switchboard, and you just ask to be connected to the right department from there, or they are meant to customers calling from abroad. I refuse to call non-geographical numbers pretty much on principle now, unless it's a service that I have good reason to pay for (the National Rail info line and stuff).
The one institution so far where I've encountered problems with this tactic was HMRC who basically said, this line was only for customers calling from abroad, I should call the 0845 number, and they were going to terminate the call now. I'm still contemplating a mini crusade against them: I pay enough tax in this country to not expect to give the HMRC a cut of my phonebill to boot.
Incidentally, Natwest will happily give you geographic numbers for their branches and online banking service.
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I am interested to know how the HMRC knew the call was coming from the UK. May be worth calling them and withholding your number (by dialling 141 first) and see if they can tell (unless of course the international number goes to a different department but even then they wouldn't know where you are calling from I would have thought).
I think these revenue sharing lines should be banned (unless it is a optional service you require). Virgin Media have just changed their support line in response to customer complaints (yes I was one of those complaints) from an 0901 premium rate line to and 084x number and free if you have a Virgin phone line. An improvement but could do better I think.