TalkTalk charges for bundled calls

[Abandoned_Trolley]

hi


Just looking through my bank statement and noticed that the last direct
debit from TalkTalk was about £25 highter than normal.

I have a broadband service from them and pay a fixed fee for all
national and mobile calls, so normally the only call charges are for the
occasional international call.

But this bill included a few calls to a normal Virgin mobile number
07305 xxxxxx one of which was charged at just over £20 for a 3 second
call. The other calls to the same number are all on completely different
tariffs.

All these calls are categorised as "SERVICES F" or "SERVICES G" whereas
all other mobile calls are identified by their network provider.

Has anybody heard of anything like this before ?

AT

[Bob Eager]

The BT Price List is a good start for number classification. That number
is an 'fw10', not the more usual 'fmxx'.

It is listed as 'Calls to WiFi services' so that phone must be special in
some way.

[Graham J]

Presumably you know who you called on that number? Perhaps it was Dido
Harding?

You could ring her successor at TalkTalk - Tristia Harrison - and ask
for an explanation of the charge. From what I read here nobody else at
TalkTalk answers the phone ...


--
Graham J

[Abandoned_Trolley]

Its a Virgin Mobile PAYG handset owned by one of my wifes technophobe
friends - no idea what could be special about it.

Do you have a link to the relevant bit of the pricelist - I assume its
online somewhere ?

AT

[Andy Burns]

Abandoned_Trolley wrote:

> Do you have a link to the relevant bit of the pricelist - I assume its
> online somewhere ?

The BT price list is here

<http://bt.co.uk/pricing/current/Call_Charges_boo/1631_d0e5.htm#1631-d0e5>

<http://bt.co.uk/pricing/current/Call_Charges_boo/0016_d0e5.htm#PriceImpl514822>


but you need a TalkTalk list, I can only see a 2011 version online

[Bob Eager]

This bit decodes the call types:

http://bt.co.uk/pricing/current/Call_Charges_boo/0016_d0e5.htm#0016-d0e5

This bit binds the numbers to those:

http://bt.co.uk/pricing/current/Call_Charges_boo/1631_d0e5.htm#1631-d0e5

Of course, BT have their own prices, but I guess it's an indication of
relative termination charges.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 04/02/2021 in message <rvgqsp$7lg$1...@dont-email.me> Graham J wrote:

>Presumably you know who you called on that number? Perhaps it was Dido
>Harding?

You've been traced, now you're going to be tested :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK
This is as bad as it can get, but don't bet on it

[Philip Hole]

On 04/02/2021 12:28, Bob Eager wrote:

No Way...

See this:

https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm?xid=524987&band=FW10

and this:


https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/compare.htm?xid=524987&band=FW10&ctype=R1&clen=3


Apart from TT's price list, this is as definitive as it can get.
--
Flop

[Roderick Stewart]

On 4 Feb 2021 14:04:51 GMT, "Jeff Gaines" <jgaines...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

>On 04/02/2021 in message <rvgqsp$7lg$1...@dont-email.me> Graham J wrote:
>
>>Presumably you know who you called on that number? Perhaps it was Dido
>>Harding?
>
>You've been traced, now you're going to be tested :-)

Your details have been entered into our database. (At least we thnk
it's a database). Your reference number is 1048577.

Rod.

[notya...@gmail.com]

Talk Talk gouging - never heard of that.

It is a regular mobile number

http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm?xid=525283&band=FW10

"Call Cost for Charge Band: FW10 WiFi Services
Telephone Tariff: BT Unlimited Weekend Calls
(Call costs include VAT at 20%, minimum call 60 seconds)
All Week - 9.54p per minute and set-up cost of 23.29p


Sample Call Costs 30 secs 1 min 3 mins 10 mins 30 mins 1 hour 1½ hours
All Week 32.8p 32.8p 51.9p £1.19 £3.10 £5.96 £8.82 "

Are you sure it was not a 3 hour call? E.g. left off hook?

[Bob Eager]

The BT price list is surely defunitive (and in any case you are just
repeating it).

My point was that it's listed as WiFi Services rather than mobile. That
may not be physically different, but it may indicate a tariff difference.

[Andy Burns]

Bob Eager wrote:

> The BT price list is surely defunitive (and in any case you are just
> repeating it).

for BT customers.

> My point was that it's listed as WiFi Services rather than mobile. That
> may not be physically different, but it may indicate a tariff difference.

A 10 year old TT price list [from a stagnant internal? TT website?]
shows a different subset of number prefixes for fw10, though still in
the pence per minute range rather than pounds per second range.

<http://m1.ttxm.co.uk/sites/broadband.talktalk.co.uk/pricing/pdf/TalkTalk_NGN_prefixes_01NOV11.pdf>

[Theo]

notya...@gmail.com <notya...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Talk Talk gouging - never heard of that.
>
> It is a regular mobile number

It's complicated.

https://riskandassurancegroup.org/uk-070-number-range-consultation/

<quote>
2017 Ofcom consulation: Do you have any further comment on our proposals for
regulating 070 termination rates? Please provide reasons and evidence in
support of your views.

RAG: Rather than imposing price changes which are restricted to 070, Ofcom
may also wish to consider kicking off the wider strategic initiative of
reviewing and improving the UK telephone numbering plan. This could be done
in such a way as to create a real separation between ‘normal 07 mobile’ and
‘all other expensive 07 type destinations’ We observe that there are many
other 07 destinations which cause issues such as 07305 – fw10, 074180 –
fw12, 074521 – fm11, 077978 – f. These types of other destinations have also
been seen to occasionally result in bill shock, service provider fraud or
international artificial traffic inflation. They are also, like 070,
generally omitted from free bundled mobile minutes for UK consumers.
<snip>
</quote>

Ofcom's response (2018) only relates to 070 numbers, but set termination
fees for them to be the same as mobile numbers. It appears it didn't
address 07305, although individual telcos like BT were free to do their own
thing.


I would ask the OP: are you *sure* the number is correct? It seems
surprising that a fw10 number would be issued as a UK mobile number, which
leads me to suspect that somebody made a dialling or similar mistake.
Even Virgin's home phone plan has fw10 as a special price band (10p/min).

Also to note, there's a long 2017 thread here:
https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/I-called-my-Husbands-mobile-and-it-cost-me-45/td-p/1446113

which has someone complaining about an 074882 (post#19) showing up as fw10
- but now on Codelook it shows as fm1. So it appears some numbers have been
reallocated, and maybe Talktalk haven't kept up. The Ofcom numbering plan
document gives 2016 as the date of allocation of 07305 to Virgin, but I
can't find the document where Ofcom give the charge bands, which would be
the authoritative source.

I'm wondering whether 07305 has changed charge band and TalkTalk haven't
kept up? Or Virgin have started issuing mobile numbers in fw10?

Theo
the numbering plan is such a mess :-(

[Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd]

> I'm wondering whether 07305 has changed charge band and TalkTalk
> haven't kept up?

If you drill down to that number in CodeLook, it shows historic changes,
sometimes internal to the database (changes of name), but 074882 did indeed
change from FW10 to FM1 in May 2019, but 07305 is still FW10.

Click on Compare All Residential Call Costs, and CodeLook compares various call
lengths for all operators, TalkTalk FW10 should be 41p for a minute, 77p for
three minutes.

Angus

[Theo]

Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd <an...@magsys.co.uk> wrote:
> > I'm wondering whether 07305 has changed charge band and TalkTalk
> > haven't kept up?
>
> If you drill down to that number in CodeLook, it shows historic changes,
> sometimes internal to the database (changes of name), but 074882 did indeed
> change from FW10 to FM1 in May 2019, but 07305 is still FW10.

Ah, thanks, I missed that.

On a related note, what exactly *are* the 'WiFi services' for which the fw*
bands and numbers exist? I can't think of any wifi service that has
anything to do with phone calls - it's not dialup. Some wifi services (BT
Openzone etc) are charged on a time basis but I can't think they would be
billed as if dialling an 073xxx number.

There are also VOIP services, but they're not specifically wifi - could be
ethernet (via DSL, cable, etc) or LTE or whatever your connection happens to
be.

What is this charge band for and who is using it for its intended purpose?

Theo

[Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd]

> On a related note, what exactly *are* the 'WiFi services' for

> which the fw bands and numbers exist?

Ultimately it's BT that determines charge bands, being the biggest operator,
and the operators with whom they interconnect who want money to deliver calls
to/from them, often so they can pay cash to end users (premium numbers, etc).

Ofcom only tends to get involved when pricing gets out of hand, when they
receive too many complaints, and it then takes a few years for the consultation
and legal process to cut the cost.

But BT does not really explain the differences between many charge bands, and
never to my knowledge these FW bands, other than saying wifi in the price book.


I assume it goes back to a time when mobile calls were charged at premium
prices, there was a lot of talk about urban wifi networks being able to carry
cheaper calls, only one was launched, Rabbit in 1992, which lasted two years.
Some empty shops got wifi installed to try and show advertising to passing
users.

So these FW bands were probably intended for cheaper mobile calls, but never
really took off, due to Ofcom continually cutting mobile costs.

When I go a Sky Mobile SIM it had a number 074883 which was FW10 until two
years ago, now FM1, although I ported my old EE number so no-one paid FW10 to
call me.

Angus

[Theo]

Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd <an...@magsys.co.uk> wrote:

> > On a related note, what exactly *are* the 'WiFi services' for
> > which the fw bands and numbers exist?
>
> Ultimately it's BT that determines charge bands, being the biggest operator,
> and the operators with whom they interconnect who want money to deliver calls
> to/from them, often so they can pay cash to end users (premium numbers, etc).

That's surprising. So it's not Ofcom that sets the numbering plan and
bands, but BT?

Or you mean Ofcom sets the numbering plan, BT picks a rate and clumps
numbers into bands, and everyone follows their lead? And therefore any
telco is free to reassign numbers into arbitrarily different bands?
(so this number could be fw10 for BT, fm1 for somebody else?)

Or it's a bit like creating Usenet groups - BT as defacto authority changes
things, but individual admins need to update to pick up the changes, which
of course many don't.

> I assume it goes back to a time when mobile calls were charged at premium
> prices, there was a lot of talk about urban wifi networks being able to carry
> cheaper calls, only one was launched, Rabbit in 1992, which lasted two years.
> Some empty shops got wifi installed to try and show advertising to passing
> users.
>
> So these FW bands were probably intended for cheaper mobile calls, but never
> really took off, due to Ofcom continually cutting mobile costs.

That sounds like there isn't anyone legitimately using these numbers today,
then? And any calls you get from them are likely to be CLID spoofed?

(there's a handful of mentions on 'who called me' sites, but not much)

Theo

[Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd]

> Or you mean Ofcom sets the numbering plan, BT picks a rate and
> clumps numbers into bands, and everyone follows their lead? And
> therefore any telco is free to reassign numbers into arbitrarily
> different bands?

Essentially yes, except that Ofcom determines the broad cost of numbers within
a range, like restricting 07 numbers.

> (so this number could be fw10 for BT, fm1 for somebody else?)

Any operator can charge what they like for calls, except for the service
charges that are defined by the industry. Most keep to the BT bands, but often
charge more than BT.

> That sounds like there isn't anyone legitimately using these
> numbers today,

Sky Mobile issued FW10 numbers, and they are legitimate, although have now
changed them to FM1.

Angus