The New Consumer Rights Directive & 0843, 0844 & 0845 Numbers

Friday 13th June 2014 sees new EU consumer laws being introduced under The Consumer Rights Directive.

If your business provides a telephone number starting with 084X or 087X for your customers to call you on, this new law could affect you.

The first thing to point out is that this is a new ‘consumer’ law. If your business only deals with other businesses (B2B) and not the general public, then it doesn’t apply to you. However that said, it is still advisable to consider moving to a new number that is cheaper to call.

The telecommunications world has moved on a long way since the introduction of 0845 numbers, and you can now benefit from all the usual call management features on alternative numbers. This includes 0333 numbers as well as virtual landline numbers (also known as Geographic Numbers) for any UK town or city.

In a nutshell, any consumer who needs to call a business, regarding a product or service which they have already purchased, needs to be able to call the business at a cost of no more than the price of calling a standard landline number.

Sales lines are not included in the new laws, however to encourage more sales, we would recommend that businesses use 0800 Numbers (Freephone Number).

Many organisations have already made the switch to 03 numbers. These include the BBC, DVLA, The Environment Agency and Tesco.

We have solutions available from just £4.99 a month which includes free diversion to UK landlines & mobiles. See our 0333 Numbers or Geographic Numbers page for tariffs and to choose your new number.

If you are taking out a new number to replace an existing number that you have with us, ask us about our free facility whereby you can add a message to your old number giving the caller your new number to call.

You can read more details on the new legislation at the following links:

www.gov.uk/government/policies/providing-better-information-and-protection-for-consumers
www.gov.uk/government/news/government-cuts-off-costly-calls