Dear LPG,

Here is something I came across the other day.   I am sure that I am not the only pensioner who has managed to find myself opening countless letters from catalogues especially designed to catch the interest of the older person.

In my case they do achieve their goal because I am often intrigued by the innovations they purport to offer and, until now, I have managed to make my orders by using the phone number they offer in the catalogue.  As in the case of many of these companies, the order number of the catalogue I use starts with 0871, which I have just worked out costs anything between 22p and 84p per minute to call.

I have always wondered why my telephone bills are so high and have learned that continued calls to numbers like that make quite a sizeable contribution to my relatively large bills.

My granddaughter showed me a way of often finding cheaper alternative contact telephone numbers for many of them.  She brought my attention to a website that I think everyone should keep bookmarked on their computer.  It does not always work but if you input the expensive telephone number there will often be a corresponding number which has a code beginning with 01 02 or 03 which will cost a fraction of the price to call.  It is called ‘say no to 0870’ but can help you to find alternative telephone numbers for those that start with 0871, 0844, some of those beginning 09 which are the most expensive of the lot, and many others.  

Please find a link to the details below and also remember that they have to have the information to be able to pass it on via their website.  Logic is often missed and because of this I would like to mentions something really obvious that may not occur to many readers; if you come across a cheaper way to get through to any of the more expensively coded numbers, letting this organisation know will help someone else when they look it up.  So please click on contact and acquaint them with any alternatives you come across so that they can add the details to their data base.  

JF, Bellingham

JF has left a link to the ‘say no to 0870’ website…

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LPG found some more information on the cost of dialling 0870 coded numbers…

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