0844
Posted: Sat 23 February, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism 1 Comment »While most people are familiar with the 0845 “local call” numbers, there’s now a new number in the same range, and this one is 0844, which (if you didn’t know already) is charged at 5p per minute .
For me the 0844 number is kind of weird, as it’s also the phone code for the area I grew up in. So at the moment I still think “Oh, they’re close to where I grew up” when I see a company advertising an 0844 number.
And yes, I know, it hasn’t been 0844 for a long time now – but I wonder whether the residents of that area will start complaining when idiots dial 01844 instead of 0844 , and get a number that already exists…
0844 isn’t all that new; a quick look at the list shows blocks registered as early as February 2000, if not earlier (although to be fair, they might not have been in service very quickly). Strangely though, I don’t recall seeing an 0844 number advertised.
I might hope that by now people know the numbering scheme well enough not to misdial whole destination types too often. But I generally hope that people aren’t stupid and it rarely goes well.