Awkward messages:Linda Keohane contacted us with an interesting query regarding directory enquiry numbers. Her issue is not with the cost, but with how difficult it is to use a number that has been texted to her by the operator.
When she calls 11811, she is asked if she would like to be connected. She is well aware that agreeing to be connected means the call will be expensive. Sensibly she always says no and waits for the number to be texted to her, which 11811 does for free. The problem is that the number is texted in the 01-1234567 format and not the 011234567 format.
“Therefore, if I try to call directly using the number in the text, I get a ‘number not valid’ or ‘call failed’” notice,” she says.
Luckily, she is good at remembering numbers and does not use her mobile phone when driving or she might be tempted to use the expensive call-connection option.
“I can’t help feeling that this is a deliberate ploy by the company to entice people to use the call-connection option, which obviously increases revenue for them. Surely they must be aware that the numbers they text are not useable?” she says.
Keohane says the phone numbers have been texted in the hyphenated format for a long time, but I can recall receiving texted numbers in the non-hyphenated format in the past.
“I would love an answer to this,” she says. “I have queried the practice with call-answering staff but to no avail. They appear not to understand what I mean.”
The Irish Timescontacted Eircom, which runs the service. A spokeswoman said its operator services team had made a number of test calls to the 11811 service using a range of different mobile handsets.
“Most of the handsets they tested allowed them to highlight the hyphenated number within the SMS and successfully place a call directly to that number. Older handsets did not give them an option to highlight the number within the SMS, irrespective of whether the number was hyphenated or not, but it did give the option to call the number from the options menu.”
She assured our reader that sending a hyphenated number within the body of the complimentary 11811 text message was not a ploy to attract people to use the call-completion option. She added, “We have had no customer enquiries or reported difficulties accessing any of the numbers texted from the 11811 service.”
Sick of paying doctors
A reader contacted us to highlight the high cost being treated for illness here. This reader’s daughter lives in Holland where she pays €25 for a visit to a GP. When she is here, she pays €60. “They still make house calls there, which are a thing of the past here,” he writes. “I’ve suffered with a chronic back condition for the past year and must be perceived as a ‘walking wallet’ by the medical profession.”
He says a pain specialist was paid almost €1,000 “for something like 30 minutes of time spent with me. Almost all of this was paid by the VHI but, when I protested to them, I got the expected ‘hands off’ reply. More recently, a consultant in Galway recommended a colleague in Cork, where I live, but the local man wouldn’t see me without a letter from my GP – which cost me another €60. I could go on.”
Cards playing tricks?
Richard Doherty would like other readers to know of the difficulties he has had using his new Ulster Bank Visa debit card. Doherty was in a post office in Kilbeggan recently paying his credit card bill with the card. “The first transaction was declined but the second was successful,” he writes.
Some days later, however, he discovered that both transactions had been processed and his current account had been nearly emptied of cash.
He contacted MBNA, the credit card company, and was told it hadn’t yet received any payment. He then contacted An Post and was told this double debiting was a frequent problem with Ulster Bank’s new(ish) cards. “They assured me only one payment would be accepted, but that it would probably take a few days for the second payment to reappear in my account,” he says.
Doherty previously used the bank’s Laser debit card but found it a nuisance too. “I’m just letting people know,” he says.
This is not the first time Ulster Bank’s Visa debit cards, which were released late last year, have appeared on our pages. Earlier this year, several readers contacted us after experiencing problems getting cash back on the Visa debit cards, which Bank of Ireland plans to start rolling out instead of Laser cards next year.
