The callous 118 telephone trick that costs you HUNDREDS of pounds within seconds

How firms profit from redirecting callers of wrong numbers to pricey services

FAMILIES are being warned to avoid a sinister rip-off known as ‘unused number squatting’ that tricks them into dialling an expensive phone number. The little-known scam relies on phone users making a sequence of dialling errors. But those caught end up being charged an average £50.

In some cases, charges amount to hundreds of pounds. It happens when disreputable directory enquiry providers ‘hijack’ out-of-use landline numbers and use them to play misleading adverts plugging services.

Bulks of 01 and 02 numbers are held by communications providers and can be sold via middlemen on to 118 providers to use.

When a caller misdials a number – or rings one they believe is still active for a person or business they know – they hear a recorded message on one of these hijacked numbers telling them that it is ‘out of service’ and to call a different number instead. Those who do as directed are tricked into using a pricey 118 service.

One customer who thought she was calling optician Specsavers was greeted with a recorded message saying the number was out of service – and that she should call 118 023.

Believing this to be a message recorded by the high street optician, she dialled the premium rate number – hanging up after realising her mistake. She was charged £7 for a 22-second call.

She says: ‘I was not advised of any charges when I listened to the message and was shocked to see the charge on my bill. I am extremely unhappy that people are getting away with scams like this.’

Another person was charged £25 for a call lasting less than six minutes. He had originally called a Northamptonbased landline and was told to dial 118 023. When he rang and the operator found the number he was looking for, he was automatically connected.

This meant he was also charged the premium rate for the duration of the connected call – not just the initial contact with the 118 service.

A 93-year-old man who was recently discharged from hospital mistakenly dialled a number he believed was for an MOT centre based in Staffordshire. He was informed that the number was out of service and to call 118 023. Information about this number’s premium rate was not supplied until 26 seconds into the recorded message, but the victim had already hung up.

As a result of this rip-off, the company behind the 118 number – PowerTel – was fined £200,000 by the Phone-paid Services Authority, which regulates premium rate services. The fine was levied because the service’s cost was not clear, the tactic misleading, and the company had not renewed its registration with the regulator.

Back in March, a company known as ‘Call The 118 113 Helpdesk’ was also fined £425,000 for telling customers there was a fault on the landline they had phoned and to call premium rate number 118 820.

Complaints resolution service Resolver has heard from many people ripped off by 118 numbers.

Spokesman Martyn James says: ‘It is a sad fact that we cannot trust businesses to be honest about the pricing of telephone calls.’

PROTECTION IS COMING

SINCE PowerTel’s fine, the Phonepaid Services Authority has said it

will ban companies from advertising directory enquiry services via ‘unused number squatting’. Promotions advertising 118 numbers will only be allowed to exist on active numbers already in use for other legitimate purposes.

Providers must also reveal the cost of onward call connections to numbers that customers request, giving them time to consider and decline. These changes take effect from early next February. Communications regulator Ofcom recently announced it will cap charges for all customers who call 118 numbers – typically elderly people and those without access to the internet – to a maximum £3.65 per 90 seconds.

Even that, of course, is eye-wateringly expensive. This comes after research showed around 450,000 people pay £2.4million more than they expect to for directory enquiry services, leading to ‘bill shock’.

There are 86 providers offering more than 200 directory enquiry service numbers beginning with prefix 118.

Nearly 200,000 people pay more than £20 just to find a number. Ofcom’s changes will be introduced next April.

David Hickson, of the Fair Telecoms Campaign, says: ‘A major hope is that the price cap will drive some of the scammers away.’

He is also awaiting a final statement from the regulators on plans to tackle rip-off call connection services that trick people who search on the internet for numbers of well-established brands into making a premium rate call – when what they should be given is an 01, 02, 03 or free 080 number.