UK 0800 calls can cost 20p/min here

I would like to remind readers not to be taken in with UK 0800 numbers when phoning from France.

We were guilty of not following our own rules when trying to arrange some speedy house insurance on our UK property after the existing company told us the premiums would be rising by 22% – the third increase in a row – despite no claims being made over recent years.

Our much larger French house costs about a third of the latest UK quote.
The result is that our latest phone bill was nearly three times the normal amount.

We traced this to five calls, all to insurance companies including a well-known building society who, after bombarding us with literature, declined our business as we had a French address, despite us requiring a quotation for our UK property.

The written quotations we received showed only the 0800 number which, we later discovered, was charged at more than 20p a minute.

In one case I complained when I was asked the same question for the fifth or sixth time in a deliberately extended call.

We recommend that callers check the website of Saynoto0870.com to find an alternative non-premium phone number and avoid the excessive call charges that go with those 0800 numbers.

Alfred McCOY
By email