Is the number up for 0870 helplines?

TELECOMS regulator Ofcom is considering a plan that would effectively end costly 0870 helplines.

As Financial Mail revealed last month, these numbers cost Britons £1.25bn in 2003 as consumers listened to messages assuring them of the importance of their call.

Even Government helplines for pensioners and doctors' surgeries are 0870 numbers, which charge up to 10p a minute.

But leading charities, such as the RSPCA, could lose a valuable source of revenue if Ofcom goes ahead with plans to ban revenuesharing between the telecoms service provider and call centre owners. This would remove the economic incentive to use the numbers.

Many believe that keeping callers on hold is a deliberate ploy by some of the biggest financial institutions to fleece long-suffering customers.

An Ofcom source said: 'The clear consensus from consumers and organisations representing consumer rights is that revenue-sharing should end.'

BT told Financial Mail it would back ending revenue-sharing, but George Kidd, director-general of Icstis, the premium-rate phone number regulator, warned there could be a hitch. 'A lot of charities depend on income from 0870 numbers,' he said.

The RSPCA's cruelty hotline would be one of those hit. A spokeswoman for the charity said: 'We plough this revenue into funding our service.

'If the situation changed, we would have to find money elsewhere that we would rather spend on animal welfare.'

Meanwhile, BT could pay the price for intervening after consumers complained about 'internet diallers' last summer. BT cut off many £1.50-a-minute 0909 numbers after it was discovered that internet hackers had installed the diallers secretly on home PCs, causing them to call expensive numbers at night.

Opera Telecom, which leased out some of the numbers, is suing BT for revenues lost by its customer Netcollex, which is linked to David Sullivan's Daily Sport publishing empire.

Rob Johnson, chief executive of Netcollex, said his firm operated only ethical dialler numbers. 'Our numbers are transparent,' he said. 'Only people who know they are dialling them are charged. We want the hackers out of business.'