Is this Fudge Acceptable to You?

Dermot,
The boys in your department are getting a bit too cheeky for my taste now. Are you aware what they've sent us?


click to see what they've done to the rest of the brochure.

I know we screwed up the regulation on Directory Enquiries, but hey, nobody found out and nobody bothered!
I know we should have regulated for DQ services to inform customers about the per minute pricing at the point of offering call connection – as the rest of Europe's regulator's have done.
I know Irish customers of DQ's are not informed about the per minute pricing at all.
I know our "Customer Information Guide" on DQs is a joke and a sad excuse for not regulating properly.

But Dermot,
I can not move against our man mainly responsible for this situation. He is invaluable to ComReg as he is also one of our master spin-doctors. I have nothing to prove that he is secretly on the payroll of Eircom or Conduit – who make millions out of our flawed DQ regulation – although it is difficult to explain why we would not protect the Irish DQ customer for other reasons.

Can I suggest the following compromise: We introduce regulation that in the future the DQ service providers will have to inform the public about the pricing in their advertising. And not at point of offering the service. Eircom and Conduit will be happy enough with that, as this will not hurt their business.

Such regulation is in place in Switzerland, so it should be good enough for the Irish DQ customer ( and nobody needs to know that the Swiss regulator is just in the process to change Swiss DQ regulation this summer to include information at point of service).

Let me know whether this fudge is acceptable to you?

John

resources:

Regulation in the UK:
From the UK Regulator Ofcom:

"Question 7 What is ‘call completion’? How will it affect me?
Some DQ service providers offer call completion as an extra feature on their 118 DQ services. Call completion means that after it finds the number you want, the service provider will offer to connect you directly to the number you request (so you don’t have to hang up and re-dial). In all cases, the service provider should still tell you the number, if you want it, even if they then connect you directly to it. You don’t have to use call completion if you don’t want to. You should be aware that it may be cheaper to hang up and redial the number yourself. The price of the call completion service must be given to you if you choose to use call completion. Call completion to adult services will not be allowed."

Regulation in Spain:
Email from the regulator: "In Spain the user can choose between dialing the number by himself, once this is provided through the database, or he can choose "call completion". The price of the call completion is informed through a voice message and directly at the point of being offered the call completion service."

Regulation in Germany:
Call completion charges have to be given to the customer at point of offering the service, provided the call completion price is 10% or more expensive than the normal call charge would be.

Regulation in Austria:
Customers have to be informed of call completion pricing at point of the service being offered. DQ provider Conduit had a court ruling against its practice to offer the pricing only in its advertising and website.

How the Irish consumer is misinformed about DQ pricing:
When we tried to find out the pricing of 11811 service we were offered 5 different prices:
calls to 1901:
a) "A call to 11811 is 52 cent." "There is no fee for call connection."
b) "A call to 11811 is 52 cent." " I have no pricing for call connection. You have to ring 11811 yourself." When I insisted on a price information on call completion: "I rang 11811 for you. Call completion is 74 cent per second." When I insisted that this simply could not be correct I was repeatedly assured that this was the price she was told by 11811 and she could not tell me more.
c) "A Call to 11811 is 52 cent." When I insisted to be given a price for call completion I was told she did not have that information but connected me to "accounts" and there I was told that pricing for call completion was 52 cent per minute.
d) "A Call to 11811 is 66.07 cent per minute... there is a minimum call charge of 1 minute or 66.07 cent...Call connection is also at 66.07 cent per minute..." When I said that I had been given a different price when calling earlier, I was told that prices for DQs had gone up.

call to 11811: 63.92 cent for the call and 37.53 cent per sec for call connection. When we questioned the reliability of the information, we were assured that this was the information in his documents.

website eircom.ie: 66.07 cent for call and one number, 39.39 cent per minute for call connection

website of 11850 DQ gives no indication of call completion pricing at all
pricing info on website differs from pricing info given by 11850 operator.

Pricing on the 11850 website (Conduit) is not adequately presented: call completion charges are not mentioned at all;
pricing differs from pricing given by 11850 operator; consumer prices have to be given inclusive of VAT, which they are not.



26th April 2004:
ComReg are still promoting their flawed brochure on their website, despite being asked to withdraw it:


2nd June 2004:
Bravo, ComReg is finally doing the inevitable.

Read their public consultation document from their website.

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