I have a pay monthly cotract account and have just received a bill charging me an additional £3.73 for calling an 084 number.
After contacting O2 several times over the web and by phone, I was able to work out that the £3.73 was an O2 access charge for an 8 min 36 sec connection to the company I was calling. The company I was calling did not levy a service charge to O2 to pass onto me for phoning a non-geographical number.
O2 originally stated that the £3.73 was passed onto O2 by the company I called, and therefore onto me.This was not the case. I am enclosing an extract from the Uswitch website that is worth reading:
" under the new rules, mobile phone networks are obliged to clearly print the price of non-geographic calls on bills and on customers' contracts and anywhere their customer support contact number appears . Or more specifically, they'll have to print the 'access charge' that applies.
The term 'access charge' has come into being because Ofcom’s new regime will also see the cost of calling a premium rate number split into two parts.
These are:
1) The price it costs to call the service provider (that’s the business you’re calling). This is referred to as the ‘service charge’
2) How much your network is charging to connect the call. This is referred to as an ‘access charge’."
I have suggested to the O2 customer service department that it needs to clearly differentiate between O2's own access charge and the service charges other companies pass onto O2. In my case I felt it unfair and unreasonable for O2 to charge me a £3.73 access charge for a single connection to the company I was calling. I feel 45p for a single connection could have been reasonable as O2 did not need to connect me 8 and a bit times during my 1 phone call. Hovwever it would also be reasonable for O2 to include it's own access charge within my monthly contracted payments to O2, and only pass on to me the additional service charge leveied by the company I was calling.
To be fair O2 took on board my suggestion, and will look into how its access charges are represented. I am pleased to say I was refunded the access charge of £3.73. All told, a good result.
