{"id":140708,"date":"2018-06-13T16:07:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T16:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/bill-shock-warning-on-118-calls-prompts-regulator-to-act\/"},"modified":"2018-06-13T16:07:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T16:07:51","slug":"bill-shock-warning-on-118-calls-prompts-regulator-to-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/bill-shock-warning-on-118-calls-prompts-regulator-to-act\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Bill shock&#8217; warning on 118 calls prompts regulator to act"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"118 118 ad\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/5588\/production\/_95969812_118ad.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  118 118<figcaption>Image caption                                      118 118 has spent tens of millions on television advertising                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced it wants to cap the price of 118 directory enquiry calls at \u00a33.10 for a 90 second call.<\/p>\n<p>Market leader 118 118 charges \u00a311.23 for a 90 second call to its service. <\/p>\n<p>Ofcom said providers had been increasing prices &quot;quite significantly&quot; in recent years and that people are paying much more than they expect. <\/p>\n<p>Overall 2% of adults or one million people use a 118 service, rising to 4% among those over the age of 65. <\/p>\n<p>Ofcom launched its enquiry into the cost of 118 calls in May 2017.<\/p>\n<p>It last investigated the sector in 2013 when the price was about \u00a33 for a 90 second call. <\/p>\n<p>At that time it said there was not much evidence of &quot;bill shock&quot;, which is where people are unpleasantly surprised when they receive their bill.<\/p>\n<p>Now however, it said some people were suffering &quot;bill shock&quot;.  <\/p>\n<p>It said it was now most appropriate to &quot;bring prices down to 2013 levels&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>The second biggest provider, BT cut the price for its 118 500 number on the 1 June to \u00a33.10 for 90 seconds, down from \u00a36.88. <\/p>\n<p>In a statement Ofcom said: &quot;We&#039;re concerned about rising prices for directory enquiries, and callers paying much more than they expect. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;So we&#039;re taking action to protect consumers by proposing a cap on the cost of 118 numbers.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Ofcom&#039;s consultation will run until 22 August with a decision due at the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright 118 118Image caption 118 118 has spent tens of millions on television advertising The telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced it wants to cap the price of 118 directory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}