A leading children’s charity has apologised for using an expensive premium rate phone number to attract donations to its flagship Christmas appeal following stinging criticism by consumer campaigners.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was accused of “insanity” by the Fair Telecoms campaign for using a controversial premium rate number for its Letter From Santa appeal, which meant telephone companies were cashing in on calls costing as much as 48p a minute.
Campaigners had also reported the NSPCC for being in breach of advertising rules by failing to tell callers they faced a punitive extra “access charge” from their operator.
On Tuesday the charity said it was “very sorry for any inconvenience or upset” caused by the decision to use the number and said prospective donors would instead be able to phone in with a different number based on “a local rate with minimal cost”.
For the appeal the NSPCC is inviting donations of a minimum of £5 in return for a letter to their loved ones “from the north pole”. Wealthy donors are encouraged to enjoy an exclusive promotional offer from Café Rouge.
The number given for telephone requests for a letter was 0845 130 3203. But the NSPCC failed to comply with the Advertising Standards Authority’s regulations that require a statement alongside each reference to the number saying “calls cost 3p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge”.
The phone company access charge is typically about 10p a minute for landline calls and about 45p a minute for calls from mobile phones. The Fair Telecoms campaign – which has campaigned successfully to expose “rip off” premium rate numbers – said this meant that some callers were paying a premium of 48p per minute – since calls to 01/02/03 numbers normally attract no call charge. It said the arrangement meant the NSPCC was collecting a subsidy towards the cost of staffing the phones, but this would amount to little more than 2p a minute, the campaign group claimed.
An NSPCC spokesman said: “We are really grateful to everyone who has taken the trouble to order a Letter From Santa this year and very sorry for any inconvenience or upset that’s been caused. Anyone wishing to order one of these special letters can do so online or contact us via email. But we’ve taken immediate action and changed the phone number so, if people do need to speak to us about their Letter From Santa they can now do so at a local rate with minimal cost.”
Fair Telecoms spokesman David Hickson said: “For the NSPCC to use a premium rate phone number in this way, particularly to raise funds for its own important work, was insanity. Notwithstanding the breaches of regulation, we found it appalling that so prominent a charity would choose to indirectly give so much money to the telephone companies, at the expense of its supporters, for the sake of so tiny a benefit.”
