Safe Speed Forums

I don’t know if any others here are on 02 but I noticed something about this service that’s not what they advertise. My wife and I are both pay as you go, and both use the 02 service. I was loading a ring tone on my wife’s mobile and then tried it out to see if she liked it. When I rang her mobile from mine and left it ringing until it timed out, my wife got a Call Alert showing my number as a missed call, I also noticed my account had been debited by 5p. Funny as this is supposed to be a free service.

I decided to investigate further and rang my mobile from my land line, once again after timing out I got a message to say missed call. I also noticed when I got my BT phone bill that I had been charged 0.042p.

I don’t know how this works with contract phones, but it would be difficult to detect and I only came across it when messing about with ring tones on my wife’s phone.

Does anyone think I have uncovered a phone scam? It is advertised as a free service. I’d like some opinions before I go any further.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

big companies get some flack because of this every now and then because people don't understand that even though your call is not connected it has actually been answered by the switchboard and diverted to the appropriate extension. It's not something you expect to be happening when calling a normal landline or mobile though.

The mobile operators used to be more open about it, charging from the second ring on some tariffs. These days you'll never get them to tell you at what point they actually start their "per second billing" from.

But before you start thinking you're being ripped off too badly, consider that you are using as much space on the phone network to hear the other end ring as if they actually picked up.

Understand what you're saying, but it's no different to your land line ringing, and it is advertised as a free service. Especially when it's been force on you.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Used to be that the landline companies got charged by the mobiles for the initial connect -call successful - nobody noticed .The problems arose when bills started to get analysed and the "minimum charge " got spotted.
The landline company said it was only passing on the charge.
Never had any dealings with mobile to mobile , but wouldn't be surprised if company A charges company B a minimum charge to route a call through ( on the mobile networks)

Least that was the explanation i got from one of the early alternative service providers to BT, when i called their accounts to queery it.
Always thought it was a bit of sharp practice and competition would have forced it out.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

My partner & myself have a PAYG mobile each (on O2), and I have just tried what you have described (ringing a phone until it times out), and we have NOT been charged for the failed call.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I'll try again in the morning.

Cheers
Dixie

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Gix,

Still the same for me, my mate witnessed it as well this morning. I rang my mobile from the wife's and my wife's from mine. We both got charged 5p even thought we did not answer our phones.

When we did not answer a text message was sent automatically from the caller to the called notifying them of a missed call.

Cheers

Dixie

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I'm on the original WAP tariff from 7 years ago (as is my partner)......granted O2 have bombarded us with "offers" to try and get us away from it (primarily I suspect because it offers 150 mins per month of free calls), but I have always told them to stick it up their arse and there is nothing they can do about it.

What really makes me laugh is they offer us a free handset "upgrade" if we want to accept the change of contract.....this offer is all well & good until I point out that we have better handsets than what they are offering as the so called "upgrade"

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Tutt tutt! Running unlocked phones on O2's network are we? They aren't best pleased about that sort of thing. Phoned them up once to get a replacement simcard after a rusting issue (don't ask) and they asked what phone I had. Sony Ericcson T68i, to which the response was "We don't offer that phone on PAYG.... we don't sell that phone at all do we?". "No, what's your point?"

Gix - do you have any diverts/notifications on.My thinking, not certain, is that no diverts on call rings till unanswered. Otherwise call centresends out notification tha you have a missed call.-- Seems to be the difference between the two scenarios.
Dixie - check for diverts ,cancel all temporally etc and try an unanswered call for a charge.

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Erm, since when has any service provider passed a rule that you can only use specific handsets?


Apart from the fact that the service provider has no say in the matter, I have yet to meet one who cares what handset you use on their network (SP locked or otherwise)

No mate....If I don't answer the phone when the call comes in....tough!
As per your way of thinking though, any call that is answered by the "answerphone" is chargeable.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

-

That was my idea in Dixie's case - possible solution - can't try it as me and missus personal ones are on a different network and my company mobile is o2, but i never see the bill.

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I have the answer service enabled on my PAYG phone so I don't get calls timing out.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Botach,

Cheers mate you've cracked it. I've just turned off Call Divert and it's worked. Until they introduced this new Call Alert, it's never made any difference what my settings were. The phones my wife and I use are old Nokia's and you can’t exactly tell if Call Divert is on or off. Anyway thanks for the advice.

Dixie

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Glad to help

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on