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Important customer information - enquiries and complaints about Premium Rate Services from your Tesco Internet phone and Tesco Talk Wi-fi

What are Premium Rate Services and how do they work?

Premium Rate Services are provided by companies who are not associated with Tesco Internet Phone and Tesco Talk Wi-fi and as a customer you're charged at the rate chosen by the company providing that service. These numbers involve a payment whereby revenue can be shared between the company you are calling and Tesco Internet Phone and Tesco Talk Wi-fi

Premium Rate Services typically can be accessed by calling them. Premium Rate Services which you call, start 09 and 118.

As a Tesco Internet Phone or Tesco Talk Wi-fi customer, all calls to Premium Rate Services are not included within your call plan, and will be charged directly to your bill.

Charges for Premium Rate Services

Pricing for 08, 09 and 070 numbers vary but 09 numbers can cost as much as £2 or more per minute depending on the service. Please see our price list for full pricing details.

087 numbers

The 0871 number range is used by a variety of organisations, from interactive ticket booking lines and financial services organisations to holiday booking services.

Ofcom, the communications regulator, has also introduced the 0872 and 0873 number ranges to provide additional capacity for future demand.

08 and 070 numbers

Calls to numbers starting 08 have a maximum charge of 18p and £1.50 for calls to 070 personal numbers.

Other numbers

There is also a range of numbers which have pre-fixes which appear to be standard UK mobile phone numbers, but in fact are not. These numbers begin with 07744, 07755, 078225, 079879, 078730, 078931, 079118, 079112, 078930, 078921, 077000, 079245, 079246, 070 or 076 and are charged at rates decided by the companies that provide them.

How to unsubscribe from or stop a Premium Rate Service

By law, all Premium Rate Services should allow you to stop or unsubscribe to them easily and at no cost for you.

All requests to stop or unsubscribe need to be requested to the company providing the Premium Rate Service, but if you're having difficulty contacting that company or finding their details, you can visit the PhonepayPlus website at www.phonepayplus.org.uk and use the ‘Number Checker' service.

If you're still having difficulties, please contact Tesco Internet Phone / Tesco Talk Wi-fi Customer Care via email tescointernetphone@tesco.net and we'll do our best to assist you.

How to make a complaint about a Premium Rate Service

If you have any problems with a Premium Rate Service and want to make a complaint, there is a regulatory body who maintain a code of practice, approved by Ofcom, which sets out the rules with which all providers of Premium Rate Services must comply. They are called PhonepayPlus and you can make a formal complaint to them, who'll investigate the complaint for you.

PhonepayPlus will help you if you've experienced problems in a number of specific areas. For example, if you have a complaint about:

• the promotion or advertising of a service - for example the cost of the call wasn't stated, or misleading claims were made in the promotion
• the actual content of a service - for example you came across offensive content or the service was unnecessarily long - and therefore expensive or,
• the way the service was operated - for example a prize was promised but wasn't delivered, or the operator didn't stop a paid service when they said they would.

You can make a complaint through the PhonepayPlus website at www.phonepayplus.org.uk or call them on 0800 500 212.

The PhonepayPlus website also contains a wealth of other useful information, including a ‘Number Checker' service where you can find out the details of the companies providing Premium Rate Services.

How to bar access to Premium Rate Services

If you would like to bar access from your Tesco Internet phone to all or specific Premium Rate Services for reasons of cost or contact, please call Tesco Internet phone Customer Care on 0845 300 2020.

Information about the Telephone Preference Service

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.

Organisations with which you have an ongoing relationship, for example those who regard you as a customer, (or in the case of charities - a donor) may well gather your consent during the early stages of your relationship with them and will therefore be entitled to call you even if your number is registered on TPS, unless you have previously told them specifically that you object to them calling you for marketing purposes.

As TPS registration only prevents marketing calls, organisations will still be able to call you for the purposes of genuine market research.

Before you register with TPS it is worth reflecting on the fact that registering may well prevent you from receiving relevant and worthwhile information. For instance charities find telemarketing to be an economical way to raise awareness and much needed support.

If you are happy to receive telemarketing calls from some companies but not others, contact the companies who you do not wish to hear from and ask them to remove your details from their call lists. All companies - including charities and voluntary organisations - are required to respect your wishes.

If you'd like to register for TPS, please visit their website at www.tpsonline.org.uk.

The options available to you when seeking refunds from Premium Rate Services in cases of abuse or scams

Where possible you should speak to the premium rate service provider directly, but if you can't contact them or they fail to resolve your complaint PhonepayPlus may be able to help you seek a reimbursement.

If you suspect abuse or a scam, please contact Tesco Internet Phone or Tesco Talk Wi-fi Customer Care immediately via email tescointernetphone@tesco.net

The role of the Telecommunications industry ombudsman, Otelo, in resolving disputes concerning Premium Rate Services

Otelo is the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman and their role is to sort out disagreements between public communications providers and their customers.

They provide a free and independent service that has been approved by the regulator (Ofcom) and their job is to investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sides of the story and looking at the facts.

Otelo can consider a complaint if the company that you can't agree with, has chosen to become one of its members. Current members cover more than 96% of the fixed line telephone market, over 55% of the mobile telephone market and 33% of the internet service provider (ISP) market.

Otelo can be your next point of call if you've complained directly to your service provider without satisfactory resolution. Otelo does not deal with complaints about Premium Rate Services - see above for the complaints that PhonepayPlus can help you to resolve; for everything else contact Otelo.

How to complain about a Premium Rate Service

It is important that you contact your Premium Rate Service provider first to let them know what's happened. A good place to start is the general enquiries number that should be on your bill. Hopefully your service provider will be able to sort out the problem at this time, but if not you should try to escalate the complaint within the company. When contacting the service provider, keep a record of all contacts – all calls, emails and letters.

To help you with this, your service provider will have a complaints handling code of practice which explains how it handles complaints about its service. This should be available on the service provider's website or as a leaflet which you can ask for. You should make every effort to follow this process.

You might get a letter from the service provider which says that it will no longer be handling your complaint and this is its final position. This is called a 'deadlock letter' and you should let Otelo about it.

If 8 weeks have passed and your service provider hasn't sorted out the problem to your satisfaction, then you should check to see if it is a member of Otelo. If it is, contact Otelo directly.

Contacting Otelo

Online: www.otelo.org.uk

Phone: 0330 440 1614 or 01925 430 049 or 0845 050 1614
Text Phone: 0330 440 1600 or 0845 051 1513

Post: Otelo, PO box 730, Warrington, WA4 6WU

Fax: 0330 440 1615 or 01925 430 059

Tesco Internet phone and Tesco Talk Wi-fi Customer Care details

For help or advice on any of the above information, please contact our Customer Care Team in any of the following ways:

By phone
0845 300 2020

By post
Tesco Internet Phone / Tesco Talk Wi-fi
P O Box 437
Stevenage
SG1 9GD

By email
tescointernetphone@tesco.net

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday - 9am to 9pm, Sunday and Bank Holidays - 10am to 4pm