Why does the CSA have a premium rate phone number?
Why do CSA have a non geographical phone number and expect all calls to be made to this.
Today phoning from PAYG mobile the 54 mins and 22 seconds cost £19:16 which they dont take into account or even offer to phone back.6 min 34 secons were hanging on to be connected after the annoying “You are in a queue” and “please hold”
To date phone calls to an 0845 number has cost in excess of £200 and not a hope of any reimbursement; but the CSA still want their pound of flesh (payments made).
Begs to believe how much the Government Departments are making in these austerity times without a thought to them who phone this number.
It should be law that Government Departments shall only give a national number for contact 01, 02, 03.
Will CSA take phone call topups into account or tell us how to contact without the aid of a computer? Think Not.
8 thoughts on “Why does the CSA have a premium rate phone number?”
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0845 are lo-call numbers not premium rate so if dialed from a bt landline they are low cost numbers, mobile networks charge more of course and this is something that should be lobbied with OFTEL.
If you are on a PAYG mobile tell the CSA when you call and they will call you back if you ask them to.
If you contact them via email they will also call you back, local libraries etc allow free internet access to their members
Alice;
Thanks for your comments regarding the 0845 number; however I previously stated that the CSA were fully aware that I was on a mobile phone (as I work away from home alot) and did request that they call me back.
CSA couldnt care less how they are contacted as long as they are and do not have common decency to phone back when requested on more than one occassion.
So the cost of phone calls are an additional expense whist trying to get information (simple as please supply …..) and they cannot comprehend this – just shows how incompetent they are this has been going on for 21 months and still waiting with extortionate 0845 calls to be left waiting from a mobile.
As the csa is a part of the department for work and pensions (DWP) you would think that phone calls should be free as the purpose is meant to be to provide a public service. It may not be the case that the csa make money out of inbound calls, it may just be that the charges are to reduce costs. My concern though is that those costs should already be covered, we pay taxes, it seems that the real problem is the way those taxes are spent. Caling the csa should be a freephone number.
J Thanks for comments; however a freephone number dialed from a mobile still attracts a premium rate.
National numbers 01, 02 etc do not and are the cheapest by far.
All Government Departments regardless should have national numbers available.
To date mobile costs to CSA are in excess of £200.00 and they dont have common decency to phone back full aware you are phoning from one as they ask.
When you give the number out they then phone you at 8pm asking for information
Worst bit they withhold their number but ask priveledge information NI No, DoB, etc
they could be anyone.
Identity Theft in the making.
Totally Gutted,
Have you checked on SAYNOTO0870.COM to see if any national numbers are
listed?
chall
Try using 0191 224 7790. It works for me.
Alice said “0845 are lo-call numbers”.
No they are not. Since 2005, it has been an offence to use this description. It no longer applies after the various changes made in 2004. In any case, it only ever applied to callers using a BT line.
0845 numbers impose a Service Charge of 2p/min on callers. They are premium rate revenue share numbers as are all 084, 087 and 09 numbers.
Due to a quirk of history, BT have included 0845 numbers in several call plans as “inclusive calls” for the last few years.
084 and 087 numbers are expensive to call from most networks and very expensive from mobile phones. BT’s low prices are a special case, not the norm.
In December 2013 the Cabinet Office instructed all government departments to choose “03” numbers as the default option. This followed a damning NAO report published in July 2013 and the subsequent PAC enquiry in September 2013.
DWP finally changed their 0845 lines over to new 0345 numbers on 17 March 2014.