BT RIP OFF 118 500, AND THE BERCOWS MARRIAGE IN TROUBLE?

118 500 BT RIP OFF

BT has been ordered to refund thousands of customers for totally overcharging in a directory enquiries rip-off.

Callers were kept hanging on the line, completely oblivious to the fact that it was costing them £2.39 a minute.

Many of the victims are elderly or vulnerable. One customer ran up an £81 bill, while another seems to have been charged £454 in three months.

BT, which failed to make its charges clear to callers kept waiting on its 118 500 number, was also fined £225,000 by the premium rate number watchdog PhonepayPlus. It imposed the fine and ordered the refunds after a tribunal ruled BT's failures were 'very serious'.

A bigger question is: why does BT charge at all. After all once they have given you the number you will be calling it and incurring a charge for the call, therefore BT are basically double charging. It’s the equivalent of being in a restaurant and being charged £2.39 a minute to look at the menu of food that you are going to BUY.

Prior to 2003 when directory inquiries was opened up to competition the flat rate for a call to 192 was 40p. Still a rip off, but the cost has spiraled since then and it’s now 59p just to connect and £2.39 a minute thereafter. So the cost of the inquiry can all depend on how much of a half wit the operator on the end of the phone is. If they tell you the number incredibly slowly because they are a bit slow witted you could be out a lot of money.

As for fining BT a mere £225.000?. They must have found it difficult keeping a straight face when they were writing that cheque. A BT spokesman said “We make millions from 118 500 so in terms of getting off lightly, we thought we’d get fined an Eric Pickles but we only got fined a Victoria Beckham”

BT said it never intended to rip off customers, but what BT really meant to say was that they never intended to get CAUGHT ripping off customers. BT also said they never intended to annoy customers with their annoying 118 500 featuring two annoying moustachioed morons.

The Advertising Standards Authority are now contemplating banning the ads on the grounds that thousands of TV’s  across the UK are being smashed by viewers trying to punch the 118 500 actors in the face through the screen.

BT said it had never intended to rip-off customers and accepted that it should have made the call cost clearer on its phone books. However, it denied other breaches of the industry code of practice.

A spokesman said: 'BT apologises for the breaches, which were due to oversights and different interpretations of the code rather than any attempt to mislead customers.

'We accept that we did not comply fully with the requirement to publish pricing information for 118 500 on the cover of The Phone Book. We have revised our processes.

That contrition from BT would have sounded a lot more genuine if they had not added “And here’s another joke, three nuns walk into a bar…………..”

BERCOW.

Sally Bercow the wife of the speaker of the House John Bercow has denied her marriage is in trouble after she was spotted kissing an unknown man in a nightclub. Mrs Bercow said that she just wanted to see what a kiss that she didn’t have to bend down to deliver was like.

The Sun reported “'They were snogging each other with tongues and couldn't take their hands off each other. It lasted at least two minutes.'
A normal kiss with her husband lasts 2 seconds because any longer than that leaves her with a crick in her neck and severe spine pain.
Apparently she also joked with fellow revelers about being a “Z list celebrity”. She’s only Z list because there are no letters that come after Z, if there were she’d been about the 90^th letter in the alphabet that came after Z.

Being the Media Tart that she is she has revealed in print the details of her and her husband’s sex life, or maybe that should be sex lives because in her case perhaps her sex life doesn’t always involve her husband.
He was furious when she told the world that he and John like to make love standing up. Now given their height differences that might sound like a physical impossibility. But it’s not, apparently he puts a bucket over her head and swings on the handle.
You have to feel a bit sorry for Bercow though because there he is in the House shouting “Order, order” and trying to be taken seriously, and there’s over 600 MP’s looking at him and thinking “That poor, poor wee man, imagine being married to her”.


The Mayor of Sochi said there are no gay people in Sochi at all. He also said “Therefore the Sochi games will have the worst opening ceremony ever”.

Meanwhile over the Environment Agency Lord Smith has explained that they are doing a great job. He said “Last year the people of Somerset were complaining about drought conditions, well we’ve sorted that out for them haven’t we”

LORD SMITH

Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen and Prince Philip will be visiting Rome and having an audience with the Pope. It’s thought that the Queen and the Pope will discuss religious harmony, with Philip butting in that any religious disharmony is the Pope’s fault anyway because one of his predecessors wouldn’t give Henry the 8^th a divorce from Catherine of Aragon.