Anger over 0900 charges

Nakedbus is one of a growing number of companies using 0900 numbers. Photo / Janna Dixon

The family of an elderly woman is angry she was lumped with a huge phone bill for calls to bus company Nakedbus.

The incident has shone the light upon the growing practice among some companies of forcing customers to call pricey 0900 numbers. Nakedbus lists only an 0900 number, which costs $1.80 a minute to call, but no local or freephone number.

The practice has become common in Europe, where budget airlines are among the businesses to keep their free-calling and local numbers secret so customers are forced to call premium-pay numbers.

Now it is spreading to New Zealand. As well as Nakedbus, internet auction site Trade Me allows customers to contact its staff only by email or through an 0900 number.

The MetService provides weather information over an 0900 number for a fee, but has free-calling numbers for other enquiries. The visa and passport centres of the US embassy and the UK consulate also require 0900 calls.

Age Concern NZ is looking to issue a warning to its members about the practice.

Ruth Jones, 83, was arranging travel to Hamilton to visit her daughter last October and had heard that Nakedbus was an affordable option.

Her daughter Alison Jones said the only number her mother could find was an 0900 number, which she rang several times on three consecutive days, providing her credit card details to pay for the ticket.

The seven calls, lasting between one and 15 minutes, were $1.80 a minute, taking the bill to $66.60 - greater than the cost of the ticket.

"I noticed her Telecom bill for that month was very high and asked if she realised this was what had happened," said Alison. "She wasn't aware of the dramatic cost involved."

Nakedbus, a budget service that is predominantly internet-based, provides a warning that the caller will be charged $1.80 a minute each time the number is called, but Jones said her mother doesn't remember hearing it.

Jones decided to investigate and was puzzled to find the only way to contact the company via the phone was through the expensive 0900 number.

"There didn't seem to be any way of getting in touch with them if you're not on the internet," said Jones, "and I thought that was pretty scandalous, really, given people like my mother want to find the cheapest bus service so they try to book a ticket, but in the process pay a hell of a lot more than what they should."

Nakedbus chief executive Hamish Nuttall said one of the ways the company was able to offer such low fares - which start at $1 - was through making booking tickets essentially "self-service" on the internet.

"People can email us for free and in 99 per cent of cases we reply within 24 hours," says Nuttall. "The information is there, but if you actually want to talk to someone we're going to charge you because if we didn't, we'd have to put all our prices up by 50 per cent."

Nuttall said the company discouraged people from calling the 0900 number and made no money from the charges - the fees covered the cost of having someone answering the number, no more.

"We don't do anything different to what the low-cost airlines in Europe do."

Maggie Edwards, consumer adviser at Consumer NZ, said she sympathised with the Jones' situation, but Nakedbus was acting within the law because a recorded message explained the charges at the beginning of each 0900 call.

Trade Me spokesman Paul Ford said it asked customers to use emails or its 0900 number for general enquiries, but provided 0800 numbers for fraud queries and Top Sellers.

Ann Martin, chief executive of Age Concern New Zealand, said the organisation would consider putting a warning on its website.

What's behind 0900 numbers?

* A premium-rate telephone service provided by Telecom, whereby callers receive information over the phone in return for payment.

* The price can be set at anything up to $88.88 per call.

* Other companies to provide only 0900 numbers for general enquiries include Trade Me and the visa and passport centres of the US and UK embassies.

* Charities often use 0900 numbers to allow callers to make automatic donations.

* Also commonly used for competitions, voting, "chat" lines and psychic services.