Two out of three Brits think calling directory enquiries costs less than £1.
Wrong! Calling 118 from a landline can cost three times this (ouch!) and over £6.00 from a mobile (double ouch!)
By researching call charges across a variety of telecoms providers, we found over 80% of us underestimate the price of calling directory enquiries, blowing £500 million annually on 118.
Our shocking findings were picked up in The Sun
Numbers crunched
We calculated the following call charges from a variety of providers:
| 45 Second Call | Call with 5 minutes of call completion | |||||||||||||||||
| (typical call for a number) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Call Costs | Landline | T-Mobile | Orange | Vodafone | O2 | Landline | T-Mobile | Orange | Vodafone | O2 | ||||||||
| 118118 | £1.61 | £2.04 | £1.91 | £2.00 | £1.53 | £3.71 | £12.24 | £4.74 | £12.00 | £8.80 | ||||||||
| 118500 | £1.88 | £2.04 | £1.91 | £2.00 | £1.53 | £8.83 | £12.24 | £4.74 | £12.00 | £8.80 | ||||||||
Our research found Ofcom asking for simpler call charges, noting the pinch suffered by low income households. According to the regulator, 26% of lower-socio-economic groups rely on mobiles for making high cost, non-geographic calls compared to 9% of ABC1 households.
So what happened?
Eight years ago, Ofcom opened up the directory enquiry market to increase competition and ironically, reduce costs. Within two years the market was dominated by two companies, The Number (118 118) and BT (118 500). On average they charged 54p from a landline. Since then, prices have soared.
What do I do?
Save money by getting free directory enquiries. Just go to 192.com and start searching. It won’t cost a bean.
Where did we get our facts from?
Contact us to get a press release.