BT Phone Box
When was the last time you used a telephone box, and do you have any idea how much it would cost to use a BT payphone?
Animal therapist Catherine Walker from Ruthin thought she had a pretty good idea of charges, but one call she made worked out a lot more expensive than she expected.
Rhodri up with met Catherine, who specialises in communicating with horses who have behavioural problems.
Driving through the picturesque village of Tregeiriog near Llangollen, Catherine was having trouble finding the farm where she was due to pick up a horse from a client.
"I decided to contact them on my mobile phone but because of the beautiful hills around here I couldn't get a signal," Catherine said.
A familiar scenario in Wales - but luckily the therapist spotted a phone box and thought her troubles were over.
She got out some loose change when she realised it was a card-only payphone.
Because mobiles are now so popular, three-quarters of all payphones are losing money. In order to save on running costs, BT have converted some - like the one in Tregeiriog - into card-only phones.
The minimum cost for calling the payphone wasn't shown in the phone box and Catherine had to ring a freephone number to enter her card details to use the phone - which was when she got a surprise.
"It was a recorded voice," Catherine told Rhodri, "but rather strangely it was an American voice."
Catherine left a message on her client's voicemail and eventually a passer-by gave her directions.
She forgot all about the phone call until she checked her bank account a few days later, when she discovered she had been charged £4 for the 30-second phone call!
Rhodri visited Sara Goode, who runs the stables that Catherine was trying to find, and found another person who's cross about the costly payphone.
Sara said: "If people have no debit card on them, they go all the way back to the next village - which is a good three miles - to get a mobile signal on their phone. It's not really fair on people trying to find us!"
We rang BT to find out more. The company told us processing calls from credit and debit cards is more expensive than using coins and it would not be practical to display call prices to mobiles on phone boxes because they vary.
They also told us since last summer, BT has contracted BBG Global to run its card payment phones. So Catherine's call from the phone box in Tregeiriog to a farm in the same village went via a call centre 5,000 miles away in sunny San Diego, California!
After a lot of searching on their website, we managed to find BBG Global's call price list, and discovered Catherine should have been charged £2 rather than £4 for the phone call she made.
After X-Ray contacted them, BBG agreed to refund half the bill.
We asked BT if other customers had complained about BBG's call costs. BT said they were aware of "feedback" regarding payphone credit-card calls, but Tregeiriog would not be getting its coin-phone back.
They are entitled to convert 30% of their payphones to card-only booths, and BT says this is a better option than removing unprofitable phone boxes all together.
So next time you use a card-only payphone, do not be surprised if the operator's voice at the other end of the line is a little more exotic than you expected.
