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In article ,
says...

Odd that I recall a "You and Yours" programme devoted to warning people
about this, then. The point they made was that pressing a given key accepts
the call on a 'reverse charges' basis. So you then pay. Were they fibbing?

Bad reporting as usual. In the UK, if you're not behind an old PBX,
pressing a key only identifies a real person has answered the call. It
could be heard by equipment at the callers premises to route the call to
a particular service, which could be an outgoing chargeable call to a
premium service provider, but that charge would appear on the caller's
bill, not yours.

If the caller themselves was a telecom service provider (TSP) then, that
charge could, technically, be passed onto the destination TSP. They
could flag the call as a new one from you, so you could see the bill.
If this did happen, then your TSP (e.g. BT) would quickly decide not to
carry traffic from that remote TSP, since it would be easy for you to
prove you never made the call to the premium service provider. It would
take an authorised TSP to flag the original call as cleared and start a
new one in reverse. However, this wouldn't be logged as made by you on
your TSP's equipment

The calling party may attempt to raise a bill for the call themselves,
but it won't come via your TSP. They may make it appear to, by careful
copying of your TSP's bill format.

If the "service" were something supported by your TSP, like "0800-
REVERSE", then they do reverse the charge if the called party agrees to
it. This is why you should opt out of this service if you never use it,
since the person answering the phone may not understand you will get
charged if they agree to receive the call, just like a reverse charge
call via an operator.

The original scam to "press a number" was where this number forwarded
the caller to an outside line on a PBX, so they were able to get the
called party's dial-tone and so any calls made via this would be charged
to the PBX owner. AFAICR, it never worked on any UK PBXs anyway as this
"feature" of forwarding in incoming exchange-line call back to an
outgoing exchange-line under user's control wasn't available.

--
John W
To mail me replace the obvious with co.uk twice

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In article , John W.
wrote:
In article ,
says...

Odd that I recall a "You and Yours" programme devoted to warning
people about this, then. The point they made was that pressing a given
key accepts the call on a 'reverse charges' basis. So you then pay.
Were they fibbing?

Bad reporting as usual. In the UK,
[snip]

If the "service" were something supported by your TSP, like "0800-
REVERSE", then they do reverse the charge if the called party agrees to
it.

That seems to me to be the kind of thing the You and Yours programme was
talking about, and what I had in mind. The idea being that the caller asked
you to press a key - which then was taken as acceptance of reverse charging
- without them telling you this is what they were up to.

So was it 'bad reporting' to report this? Or are you saying my *telco*
would add the warning/option so we'd be told beforehand? If so, I am
puzzled by why a number of people appeared on the programme and said they
never had such a warning.

Slainte,

Jim

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In article , Jim
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:


Odd that I recall a "You and Yours" programme devoted to warning
people about this, then. The point they made was that pressing a given
key accepts the call on a 'reverse charges' basis. So you then pay.
Were they fibbing?


There is a reverse charge type of call which a caller can access from a
free number, but the called party must be given an invitation to accept
or reject the call. If the operator is automated, the called party
would press a specific key to accept. This service is very expensive -
£3 to £4 for connection plus £1 per minute.

The snag here is "must be given". Does that mean you own telco will do this
automatically? Or are we relying on crooks to be honest and tell you this
rather than fibbing to you?

Slainte,

Jim

--
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Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Jim Lesurf wrote:

Above said, of late I have been getting automated voice calls from outwith
the UK. Variations on "You have won a fictitious holiday so press 'X' and
we can start billing you for this international call at inflated rates.". I
generally allow these to play over and over for as long as they run. Then
try 1471 once they have quit and I hung up.

That's not how they work. They know that nine people out of 10 will
hang up, or they get an answering machine. Press the digit, then walk
away, and your dead call will get put through to a real person. That
wastes their time (and money).

I've done this for ages, and no funny premium rate calls have appeared
on my bill.

Andy

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On 2008-07-21, Mike Henry wrote:
In , Jim Lesurf
[another big snip!]
He was clearly trying to make a commission out of 'switching' us from our
current supplier to his own, without admitting it to me.

Wasn't npower was it?
Sounds very similar to my experience with them.

If only everyone was as militant as you and I, these companies would be
forced to be honest and upfront. Sadly there are enough people who give
them the time of day for them to continue these unscrupulous practices
because they don't get caught enough, and when they do the penalties
aren't enough.

I came awfully close to phoning the policing and saying I thought they were
thieves checking properties to come back to later.

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In message , Jim Lesurf
writes
In article , Jim
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:


Odd that I recall a "You and Yours" programme devoted to warning
people about this, then. The point they made was that pressing a given
key accepts the call on a 'reverse charges' basis. So you then pay.
Were they fibbing?


There is a reverse charge type of call which a caller can access from a
free number, but the called party must be given an invitation to accept
or reject the call. If the operator is automated, the called party
would press a specific key to accept. This service is very expensive -
£3 to £4 for connection plus £1 per minute.

The snag here is "must be given". Does that mean you own telco will do this
automatically? Or are we relying on crooks to be honest and tell you this
rather than fibbing to you?

I recently had a call, which I answered (in my usual way) by simply
giving my telephone number. An automated American voice then said "That
is an invalid response. Please press 1 for assistance" (which I didn't,
and hung up). Needless to say, 1471 didn't reveal the caller's number.
Was this a scam? I too have read/heard that it's an urban myth that you
can get charged for simply pressing a number.
--
Ian

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On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:30:26 +0100, Mike Henry
wrote:

In en.co.uk, Roderick
Stewart wrote:

In article , Angus Rae wrote:
Roderick Stewart wrote:
What does "BT Privacy at home" cost?
*
Absolutely nada, nowt, zero and nothing.*

Correcting myself; the CLID side of it costs nothing as long as you make*
a couple of chargeable calls a month, otherwise they reserve the right*
to levy the normal charge - shouldn't be an issue unless you're on*
holiday for a month or use a 3rd party calling system that's on an 0800*
number. Or just don't make any phone calls.

Not likely to have cost me much then, and since I registered on the TPS
website anyway, I probably wouldn't achieve anything by trying to change my
BT account.

Well if you're currently being charged for Caller Display, you'd achieve
getting this for free. So it's definitely worth checking your bill.

NB: The "TPS registration" part of BT Privacy is optional. And the third
part of BT Privacy is a nice set of "go away salespeople" stickers for
your front door.

BT told me that TPS was compulsory and I never got any stickers.
Waaaaaaa! Stamps foot ;-)

--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Owing to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
See http://improve-usenet.org

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"Paul Murray" wrote in message
g.com...
On 2008-07-21, Mike Henry wrote:
In , Jim Lesurf
[another big snip!]
He was clearly trying to make a commission out of 'switching' us from our
current supplier to his own, without admitting it to me.

Wasn't npower was it?
Sounds very similar to my experience with them.

A friend of mine has a mentally handicapped adult son, who lives alone. He
was pursuaded to sign up for this by someone on the doorstep. Needless to
say his mum went berserk at the company.

Bill

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Mike Henry wrote:
In , Adrian C
wrote:

brightside S9 wrote:
There is. it is called "anonymous call reject" or ACR. It costs 4UKP
per month. See BT web and look for 'calling features'.

If callers are given the _free_ facility to withhold their identity,
then recipients should be given the same _free_ chance to refuse to connect.

BT making charges for this is crazy.

It's partly the governments's fault. We've only got ACR thanks to an EU
directive (97/66/EC). The telecoms companies hate ACR because fewer calls
are made and they make less money.

It's a little more complex than that, I suspect.
Callers unable to reach a called party are likely to
blame their own supplier rather than the latter's.
What about charging - should the originating caller
have to pay for the failed call? If not, could the
originating network be sure of getting a refund of
inter-network charges?

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In article . net,
Mike wrote:

it was probably an automated sales call. The numbers are called by a
computer, which checks if a human (as opposed to an answering machine)
has answered by telling you to press a key.

I frequently get junk calls, but never any on my answering machine.
So presumably they have a way to determine whether it's an answering
machine before saying anything. How do they do that?

-- Richard

--
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