Businesses must stop using expensive five-digit telephone numbers

Phone, hidden numbersPhone, Photo: Norway Today media

 

Many Norwegian companies use expensive five-digit numbers for customer service. A recent judgment makes it illegal for companies to charge more than normal mobile phone charges.

 

It can cost you 30 to 40 kroners to wait in a telephone queue for ten minutes at the bank, insurance company or power supplier if you call a five-digit number from a mobile phone, reported NRK news. This will end, say government authorities.

Following a new EU verdict, it has become illegal for Norwegian companies to offer only five-digit phone numbers to their customers, according to the news channel. National Communications Authority (Nkom) has suggested that telecom operators change prices for special numbers on a regular basis.

Together with the Consumer Ombudsman, Nkom is now considering how to proceed, and have planned a meeting during the course of this week.

‘If it’s not possible to reach an agreement, we will conduct a supervisory action with business operators in several industries to see if expensive, ‘special’ numbers are still being used by customer services’, said Bente Øverli, Deputy Head of Consumer Services.

Nkom estimates that telecommunications companies earned up to half a billion kroner by using five-digit numbers in 2016.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today