do away with 1890 numbers

BoatMad

Could BofI please ensure that it always provides geographic STD numbers for various departments.  There are  loads of groups in BofI that give out only 1890 numbers and these cost a fortune to ring from mobile phones.  1890 is a completely outdated  feature as most people these days have free national calls on their landline.

tricky D

BoatMad wrote: »

Could BofI please ensure that it always provides geographic STD numbers for various departments.  There are  loads of groups in BofI that give out only 1890 numbers and these cost a fortune to ring from mobile phones.  1890 is a completely outdated  feature as most people these days have free national calls on their landline.

http://www.saynoto1890.com/2013/02/b/

• Bank of Ireland
  • Bank of Ireland Life 1850309309 Call Instead – 017039537
  • Business Online 1890818265 Call Instead – 014606445
  • Credit Cards 1890251251 Call Instead – 0567757747 or 016798433
  • Customer Care Unit 1850753357 Call Instead – 016615933
  • Insurance Services 1890604604 Call Instead – 014620222
  • Lost 365 cards & queries 1890706706 Call Instead – 0567757007
  • Telephone banking 0818365365 Call Instead – 014044000
  • Insurance Services 1890608608 Call Instead – 012901000
    

BoatMad

thats great , but there are loads of 1890 BofI that are not listed there , 


for example , business lending on 1890 365222 seems to have no substitute,

Mint Sauce

I tried calling 365 the other day using the 01 geographical number, got greeted with their agent operating hours, then a message to say lines were closed despite calling within their advertised hours.

Bank of Ireland: Elaine

Hi BoatMad,

Thank you for getting in contact with us here on boards.ie.

Our 1890 numbers allow our customers to call at a flat ‘low call’ rate but the exact charge may vary depending on the mobile provider. This is regrettably is out of our control. However, we do offer alternative numbers for various departments which you can find here on our website. Also, if you need to get in contact with your branch at any stage you can find their direct numbers here.

We are conscious that a phone call is not always the most convenient option for our customers so we have developed and an extensive list of alternatives to help make it easier to get in contact with us. For example if you are registered for Bank of Ireland 365 Online you can send us any account specific queries through the Online Service desk and our representatives will be more that happy to assist you through email.

Bank of Ireland also offers an extensive worldwide Social connection. You can join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or, as you have done, talk to us on boards regarding any general banking queries. To find out more information on this please see this link.

We would like to thank you for your feedback. We hope that we have provided you with more accessible options to contact us. If we can help with anything else in the future please don’t hesitate to contact us again.

Elaine

SpaceTime

1890 numbers are far from a 'flat low rate'.

Most phone companies (landline and mobile) exclude 'non-geographic numbers' from their call packages and you end up paying a per min rate for them.

Even the concept of saying something's "local rate" means nothing anymore as hardly anyone is still on call plans from the 1990s!

It would be useful if companies like BoI actually wrote to ComReg. There should be an option for a non-geographic number that is charged at normal rates and is included in call bundles.

At the end of the day, it's your customers who are suffering high charges from telecoms operators and your organisation is not benefitting from that and is just taking flack for no reason.

Also, just from a technical point of view, in the past 1800, 1890 etc numbers had to be linked to real numbers i.e. 01, 021 etc. However, that hasn't been the case for a long time and non-geographic numbers can be mapped directly to a trunk connection to a call centre or any phone really. The telephone network has been 100% digital for a long time, but it's become a lot more flexible since VoIP arrived and also since various intelligent network services on the traditional systems became a lot more flexible.

So, in short it's quite possible that no geographic number exists for some of those 1890s.

Bank of Ireland: Alison

Hi SpaceTime 

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and for sending such a detailed and comprehensive post.

We really appreciate your suggestions and will certainly forward these to our Branch Network Department.

As always, all feedback is very much welcomed here.

Thanks again
Alison