(PENDING)Phonesafe, Beware!!!!!
Discussion
Vaud said:
Vaud said:
Jack,
You might want to highlight the code of practice for phone-paid services to you management. The penalties can be (relatively) severe.
Alternatively, ask the managers to set up an account and join this thread. My guess is there is a risk that a disgruntled user files a complaint to the regulator, which would not help PH one iota.
Cough.You might want to highlight the code of practice for phone-paid services to you management. The penalties can be (relatively) severe.
Alternatively, ask the managers to set up an account and join this thread. My guess is there is a risk that a disgruntled user files a complaint to the regulator, which would not help PH one iota.
johnwilliams77 said:
Do you know how to contact this regulator?
johnwilliams77 said:
Vaud said:
Who is the relevant regulator?
Is it www.psauthority.org.uk ?
070 numbers
What are they?
Numbers beginning with 070 may look like mobile numbers but they are different and can be more expensive. They are used to divert calls to another phone number. Small businesses and sole traders often used these to avoid giving out their personal phone number, and to take advantage of a facility that allows calls to the 070 number to be redirected to whichever fixed line number or mobile phone they prefer. 070 numbers are regulated by Ofcom. However, we can investigate services on these numbers if they are found to offer phone-paid services and/or the number is being misused and if the cost of the call exceeds 10p per minute.
vs
How much will it cost to use PhoneSafe?
There is no charge for PistonHeads sellers who want to use PhoneSafe. Buyers who contact a seller through PhoneSafe will be charged only a small amount more than direct calls. The charges are listed below:
Day: 37.5p
Evening: 25.0p
Weekend: 12.5p
I can absolutely assure you that I was not charged a 'small amount more'!Is it www.psauthority.org.uk ?
070 numbers
What are they?
Numbers beginning with 070 may look like mobile numbers but they are different and can be more expensive. They are used to divert calls to another phone number. Small businesses and sole traders often used these to avoid giving out their personal phone number, and to take advantage of a facility that allows calls to the 070 number to be redirected to whichever fixed line number or mobile phone they prefer. 070 numbers are regulated by Ofcom. However, we can investigate services on these numbers if they are found to offer phone-paid services and/or the number is being misused and if the cost of the call exceeds 10p per minute.
vs
How much will it cost to use PhoneSafe?
There is no charge for PistonHeads sellers who want to use PhoneSafe. Buyers who contact a seller through PhoneSafe will be charged only a small amount more than direct calls. The charges are listed below:
Day: 37.5p
Evening: 25.0p
Weekend: 12.5p
Edited by Vaud on Thursday 12th January 21:34
We have a provider in mind that we would like to use. We want to make it clear that we are more than keen to remove phonesafe, but whilst we look for an alternate solution, we have to offer Phonesafe as a service. Whilst most (if not all) disagree with the costs associated, we do have a lot of users who want to use it. We had an outage last year, the service was not available to use for over Four weeks. As a result we had numerous complaints and fewer ad conversions.
We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
KatieM said:
We have a provider in mind that we would like to use. We want to make it clear that we are more than keen to remove phonesafe, but whilst we look for an alternate solution, we have to offer Phonesafe as a service. Whilst most (if not all) disagree with the costs associated, we do have a lot of users who want to use it. We had an outage last year, the service was not available to use for over Four weeks. As a result we had numerous complaints and fewer ad conversions.
We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
While I for one welcome a long overdue update, you've missed 50% of the point.We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
The high charges are one aspect.
I think that it's the poor advertising of the charges (still in breach of the code IIRC) that is also winding people up. You can easily fix the latter while you fix the former.
KatieM said:
We have a provider in mind that we would like to use. We want to make it clear that we are more than keen to remove phonesafe, but whilst we look for an alternate solution, we have to offer Phonesafe as a service. Whilst most (if not all) disagree with the costs associated, we do have a lot of users who want to use it. We had an outage last year, the service was not available to use for over Four weeks. As a result we had numerous complaints and fewer ad conversions.
We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
The reason for the complaints is down to the inability to make contact surely - not because buyers wish to use the service. We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
KatieM,
Point well missed, congratulations.
In this day and age, you don't expect ANY website to be operating premium rate phone lines in excess of 10p/min without some enormous illuminated warning next to it. Even porn lines publish their rates.
Your current innocuous plain text link does not meet regulations, the PhoneSafe system charges well over the odds, and you run the risk of serious punitive measures should it ever be investigated.
I run my own companies, web based with cloaking phone numbers, and I paid to turn them all from 08 into 03 numbers to meet guidelines.
Haymarket/Pistonheads should just turn Phonesafe off, might actually give you some incentive to find a new provider.
Jon
(Member and ripped off phonesafe user)
Point well missed, congratulations.
In this day and age, you don't expect ANY website to be operating premium rate phone lines in excess of 10p/min without some enormous illuminated warning next to it. Even porn lines publish their rates.
Your current innocuous plain text link does not meet regulations, the PhoneSafe system charges well over the odds, and you run the risk of serious punitive measures should it ever be investigated.
I run my own companies, web based with cloaking phone numbers, and I paid to turn them all from 08 into 03 numbers to meet guidelines.
Haymarket/Pistonheads should just turn Phonesafe off, might actually give you some incentive to find a new provider.
Jon
(Member and ripped off phonesafe user)
KatieM said:
We have a provider in mind that we would like to use. We want to make it clear that we are more than keen to remove phonesafe, but whilst we look for an alternate solution, we have to offer Phonesafe as a service. Whilst most (if not all) disagree with the costs associated, we do have a lot of users who want to use it. We had an outage last year, the service was not available to use for over Four weeks. As a result we had numerous complaints and fewer ad conversions.
We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
Katie - may I draw your attention to Ollie M's post of the 11th February 2016 that indicated a replacement had been found? Why are you now saying a whole year later that you 'have a provider in mind?' What exactly have you (PH) been doing for the last 12 months, bearing in mind we were told that it would be sorted by the end of 2016?We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
It doesn't really sound like you 'are more than keen to remove phonesafe' at all.
Edited to correct year.
Edited by pincher on Tuesday 21st February 08:40
pincher said:
Katie - may I draw your attention to Ollie M's post of the 11th February 2015 that indicated a replacement had been found? Why are you now saying a whole year later that you 'have a provider in mind?' What exactly have you (PH) been doing for the last 12 months, bearing in mind we were told that it would be sorted by the end of 2016?
It doesn't really sound like you 'are more than keen to remove phonesafe' at all.
Sorry to be a pedant, but that's two years. It doesn't really sound like you 'are more than keen to remove phonesafe' at all.
KatieM said:
We have a provider in mind that we would like to use. We want to make it clear that we are more than keen to remove phonesafe, but whilst we look for an alternate solution, we have to offer Phonesafe as a service. Whilst most (if not all) disagree with the costs associated, we do have a lot of users who want to use it. We had an outage last year, the service was not available to use for over Four weeks. As a result we had numerous complaints and fewer ad conversions.
We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
It doesn't matter that you're "looking for an alternative" or all that stuff.We are awaiting information from our prospective provider as to whether they can take on our requirements. When we have an update, we will make it known to all of you. We are looking for a solution which will be using 01, 02 or 03 numbers which are included in most mobile/landline contracts.
What PH is doing is in breach of the PRS code of conduct and has been for years.
You should be turning Phonesafe off TODAY and then taking your time to seek a suitable solution with clearly-advertised pricing.
I am absolutely amazed you have not been taken to court yet, this is a total disaster waiting to happen.
Tankrizzo said:
It doesn't matter that you're "looking for an alternative" or all that stuff.
What PH is doing is in breach of the PRS code of conduct and has been for years.
You should be turning Phonesafe off TODAY and then taking your time to seek a suitable solution with clearly-advertised pricing.
I am absolutely amazed you have not been taken to court yet, this is a total disaster waiting to happen.
ThisWhat PH is doing is in breach of the PRS code of conduct and has been for years.
You should be turning Phonesafe off TODAY and then taking your time to seek a suitable solution with clearly-advertised pricing.
I am absolutely amazed you have not been taken to court yet, this is a total disaster waiting to happen.
A less than pathetic response from Katie.
I'll give you some background on what the costs are for replacing this service.
To direct a 01, 02 or 03 number to a mobile number, you are looking at a hefty connection charge and price per minute charge which could amass to a bill of anywhere between £15-30k per month, depending on how many minutes you guys use when you are enquiring about an advert.
Within the last calendar month there was 7100 minutes of phonesafe usage. This does not take into account higher call usage in the peak advertising months of April-August. We then need to look at all the extra minutes we will be doing as a result of the call charges being lower. To put it bluntly, we cannot afford to do this.
We are currently trying to procure a service which will charge us for a bank of numbers to assign to adverts, rather than a service which charges by the minute. We are awaiting confirmation from the supplier that they can meet our requirements. Most suppliers will not operate in this way, but we are hoping that they will come back to us with good news.
Many points to make in this post so please, bare with me.
1) We don't set the rates, we cannot control what your landline or mobile provider charges.
2) We make a marginal amount of money per month, a revenue share from GCI. This solution was put in many years ago and I agree it's archaic and should be removed. We are willing to sacrifice the small profit we do make, in order to provide a better service to our users.
3) When this thread was active a while ago, we checked to ensure that how we display the information is compliant, and it is. I do agree that we can do more to display some of the call rates from other providers within the phonesafe page. I will look into getting it updated.
4) We received complaints when the service was down because advertisers couldn't protect their number. Contrary to popular belief, some sellers do actually want to use it. For now we cannot switch it off
5) Within the last year, our development team have been spending their time stabilising the site. You all know about the outages we had last year, the main priority is to enusure everything is running as it should be. We simply haven't had the resource to dedicate to the replacement of phonesafe.
I would much rather be transparent and honest about the reasons why this project has been delayed and of course will always welcome any feedback you’d like to send my way.
To direct a 01, 02 or 03 number to a mobile number, you are looking at a hefty connection charge and price per minute charge which could amass to a bill of anywhere between £15-30k per month, depending on how many minutes you guys use when you are enquiring about an advert.
Within the last calendar month there was 7100 minutes of phonesafe usage. This does not take into account higher call usage in the peak advertising months of April-August. We then need to look at all the extra minutes we will be doing as a result of the call charges being lower. To put it bluntly, we cannot afford to do this.
We are currently trying to procure a service which will charge us for a bank of numbers to assign to adverts, rather than a service which charges by the minute. We are awaiting confirmation from the supplier that they can meet our requirements. Most suppliers will not operate in this way, but we are hoping that they will come back to us with good news.
Many points to make in this post so please, bare with me.
1) We don't set the rates, we cannot control what your landline or mobile provider charges.
2) We make a marginal amount of money per month, a revenue share from GCI. This solution was put in many years ago and I agree it's archaic and should be removed. We are willing to sacrifice the small profit we do make, in order to provide a better service to our users.
3) When this thread was active a while ago, we checked to ensure that how we display the information is compliant, and it is. I do agree that we can do more to display some of the call rates from other providers within the phonesafe page. I will look into getting it updated.
4) We received complaints when the service was down because advertisers couldn't protect their number. Contrary to popular belief, some sellers do actually want to use it. For now we cannot switch it off
5) Within the last year, our development team have been spending their time stabilising the site. You all know about the outages we had last year, the main priority is to enusure everything is running as it should be. We simply haven't had the resource to dedicate to the replacement of phonesafe.
I would much rather be transparent and honest about the reasons why this project has been delayed and of course will always welcome any feedback you’d like to send my way.
KatieM, while it's good to hear that there are detailed plans fora replacement, while the current system is in place surely it's only fair to unsuspecting users to make the pricing clearly visible?
It wouldn't be overly complex for the number to be hidden behind a Phonesafe logo and displayed along with costs on click/touch by the user.
It wouldn't be overly complex for the number to be hidden behind a Phonesafe logo and displayed along with costs on click/touch by the user.
rscott said:
KatieM, while it's good to hear that there are detailed plans fora replacement, while the current system is in place surely it's only fair to unsuspecting users to make the pricing clearly visible?
It wouldn't be overly complex for the number to be hidden behind a Phonesafe logo and displayed along with costs on click/touch by the user.
Unfortunately due to restrictions on development with the HTTPS project, we cannot change the UX of the advert details page. We can however make changes to the Phonesafe page. It wouldn't be overly complex for the number to be hidden behind a Phonesafe logo and displayed along with costs on click/touch by the user.
I propose including the top three mobile provider rates on the Phonesafe page, EE/O2/Vodafone. According to the EE website, they charge 75p per minute on a PAYG/contract plan. Disclosing that providers may charge up to £1 per minute is a reasonable request and a one we will honour.
KatieM said:
Disclosing that providers may charge up to £1 per minute is a reasonable request and a one we will honour.
Hoorah! 
KatieM said:
We simply haven't had the resource to dedicate to the replacement of phonesafe.
At last an admission! 
It would have been useful to have been told this ages ago!
Thanks for the openness!
KatieM said:
I'll give you some background on what the costs are for replacing this service.
To direct a 01, 02 or 03 number to a mobile number, you are looking at a hefty connection charge and price per minute charge which could amass to a bill of anywhere between £15-30k per month, depending on how many minutes you guys use when you are enquiring about an advert.
Within the last calendar month there was 7100 minutes of phonesafe usage. This does not take into account higher call usage in the peak advertising months of April-August. We then need to look at all the extra minutes we will be doing as a result of the call charges being lower. To put it bluntly, we cannot afford to do this.
We are currently trying to procure a service which will charge us for a bank of numbers to assign to adverts, rather than a service which charges by the minute. We are awaiting confirmation from the supplier that they can meet our requirements. Most suppliers will not operate in this way, but we are hoping that they will come back to us with good news.
Many points to make in this post so please, bare with me.
1) We don't set the rates, we cannot control what your landline or mobile provider charges.
2) We make a marginal amount of money per month, a revenue share from GCI. This solution was put in many years ago and I agree it's archaic and should be removed. We are willing to sacrifice the small profit we do make, in order to provide a better service to our users.
3) When this thread was active a while ago, we checked to ensure that how we display the information is compliant, and it is. I do agree that we can do more to display some of the call rates from other providers within the phonesafe page. I will look into getting it updated.
4) We received complaints when the service was down because advertisers couldn't protect their number. Contrary to popular belief, some sellers do actually want to use it. For now we cannot switch it off
5) Within the last year, our development team have been spending their time stabilising the site. You all know about the outages we had last year, the main priority is to enusure everything is running as it should be. We simply haven't had the resource to dedicate to the replacement of phonesafe.
I would much rather be transparent and honest about the reasons why this project has been delayed and of course will always welcome any feedback you’d like to send my way.
It's late where I am and so I apologise if I have missed the bit where you have answered my question regarding what you have been doing for the last year since OllieM said a replacement solution had been identified. Lack of dev resource is absolutely no excuse for not even having a tangible solution. To direct a 01, 02 or 03 number to a mobile number, you are looking at a hefty connection charge and price per minute charge which could amass to a bill of anywhere between £15-30k per month, depending on how many minutes you guys use when you are enquiring about an advert.
Within the last calendar month there was 7100 minutes of phonesafe usage. This does not take into account higher call usage in the peak advertising months of April-August. We then need to look at all the extra minutes we will be doing as a result of the call charges being lower. To put it bluntly, we cannot afford to do this.
We are currently trying to procure a service which will charge us for a bank of numbers to assign to adverts, rather than a service which charges by the minute. We are awaiting confirmation from the supplier that they can meet our requirements. Most suppliers will not operate in this way, but we are hoping that they will come back to us with good news.
Many points to make in this post so please, bare with me.
1) We don't set the rates, we cannot control what your landline or mobile provider charges.
2) We make a marginal amount of money per month, a revenue share from GCI. This solution was put in many years ago and I agree it's archaic and should be removed. We are willing to sacrifice the small profit we do make, in order to provide a better service to our users.
3) When this thread was active a while ago, we checked to ensure that how we display the information is compliant, and it is. I do agree that we can do more to display some of the call rates from other providers within the phonesafe page. I will look into getting it updated.
4) We received complaints when the service was down because advertisers couldn't protect their number. Contrary to popular belief, some sellers do actually want to use it. For now we cannot switch it off
5) Within the last year, our development team have been spending their time stabilising the site. You all know about the outages we had last year, the main priority is to enusure everything is running as it should be. We simply haven't had the resource to dedicate to the replacement of phonesafe.
I would much rather be transparent and honest about the reasons why this project has been delayed and of course will always welcome any feedback you’d like to send my way.
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