NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/uk/telecom/47

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-23 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!warwick!warwick!not-for-mail
From: [e-mail] (Mr J S Murray)
Newsgroups: uk.telecom
Subject: Charge advice has changed ?
Date: 23 Nov 1992 13:32:31 -0000
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
Lines: 32
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: clover.csv.warwick.ac.uk
Summary: Am I being charged 5p for free calls?


It appears that charge advice changed on Friday.
On the phone that I share with 5 others, we always have charge advice enabled
so that we may split the bill correctly.

Before Friday, if the call was free (in BT's eyes) eg. Mercury, 0800 ...
the exchange did not call back - ie it only called you if your call was
chargeable - the minimum charge it reported was 10p (for a 2 second call)

Since Friday, it always rings back - if it was a 'free' call, it makes the
stupid noise you get when you dial into a payphone and then 'the woman' says
'there was no charge for your call'.

This can be a little irritating, especially if you call a number via Mercury
which is engaged and keep retrying, for the charge advice messages can stack
up and it keeps calling you back.

My main question is whether I am being charged for this service or not.
I rang BT this morning and they were totally unaware of any change to their
system. Nor were they able to tell me if I was being charged 5-6p a time for
my free calls. Their only advice was to turn off charge advice each time.
I'll have to do this even though it is a pain.

They did not seem certain of the exact operation of the system, claiming that
the cost reported by 'the woman' does not include the charge for the service
itself - although my minimum 10p reported seems to indicate the reverse.

Can anyone help me with this question?

thanks

jsm