Budget Numbers Ltd Code of Practice

Including our:
Basic Code of Practice for Domestic and Small Business Customers
Code of Practice for Premium Rate Services and NTS calls
Code of Practice on Complaint Handling and Dispute Resolution

Part 1 – Budget Numbers Limited Basic Code of Practice for Domestic and Small Business Customers

Introduction to our company and services
BUDGET NUMBERS LIMITED is a trading name of GALAXY NUMBERS LTD an independent company that delivers communications services to domestic and business customers within the UK. While we may not provide all the component parts of our services ourselves, we do take responsibility for the services delivered to you. So we will liaise with our suppliers to ensure that any problems with their services are resolved promptly.

Purpose of this Code of Practice
This code informs you about our products, services, customer-care policies and where to find information about our charges and terms and conditions. This Code of Practice is published on our website at budgetnumbers.co.uk. Additional copies are available on request and free of charge to any domestic and small business customer. It is also available in alternative formats (large print, high contrast or easily resizable PDF).

How to contact us
Please contact our Customer Service Team:
By phone: 03333 222 123 (From 9am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays).
By email: admin@budgetnumbers.co.uk
By letter: Customer Support, Budget Numbers Ltd, 575-599 Maxted Road, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7DX
Website: budgetnumbers.co.uk

Our commitment to you
We are committed to giving you the highest quality of customer service. When we purchase our services from wholesale providers, we choose those providers carefully to ensure that you get a high-quality service. We make every reasonable effort to supply services that satisfy your requirements. We work to all relevant laws and regulations.

Our products and services
• Landline telephones
• Landline calls
• CPS – Carrier Pre-Selection
• WLR – Wholesale Line Rental
• ISDN – digital telephone lines
• Broadband access
• VoIP & IP telephony services
• Non-geographic numbers
• Intelligent Call Routing
• Internet
• Mobile telephone and data services

For more details on any of our products and services, or to place an order immediately, please contact our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123.

Marketing
We work to the principles in the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, which are set out on the website www.cap.org.uk.

Terms and conditions
When you subscribe to a service from BUDGET NUMBERS LTD, we will send you our head companies (GALAXY TELECOM LTD) Standard Terms and Conditions and ask you to sign a contract, if applicable. If you have any questions, please phone our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123. We may carry out a credit check as part of our assessment procedures.

Where applicable, the minimum contract term for our services is 24 months for NTS and PRS services or 36 months for WLR and IP services. We aim to provide services within three working days of your original request, subject to the availability and installation of any equipment and, where appropriate, lines to your premises. If we need to carry out a survey of your premises or lay additional cabling, we will inform you of the revised timescales as soon as we can.

Cancellation
If you decide to cancel your order or agreement before we have provided the services, you may do so without charge within ten working days after your order is placed. After ten working days we will charge you an administration fee as set out in your contract. If you wish to terminate your contract within the minimum term, please call our Customer service Helpdesk on 03333 222 123. We will charge you a fee as set out in your contract. After the minimum term you can cancel any service by writing to us at Budget Numbers Ltd, 575-599 Maxted Road, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7DX, emailing support@budgetnumbers.co.uk or by calling our Customer Service Helpdesk on 03333 222 123, giving us one months’ notice.

Faults and repairs
Please call our Fault Service Team on 03333 222 123 if you experience a fault with any of our services. We aim to have this investigated and repaired within 3 working days.

Compensation and refund policy
Our policy is to assess each claim on a case by case basis. We aim to investigate any claims and respond within 3 working days. Any refunds that are due will be credited to the next month’s invoice.

Price lists
Our pricing structure is available from our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123 and via our website budgetnumbers.co.uk. We will write to you in advance if we change the pricing structure on your products and services.

Billing
We will bill you monthly or annually in advance for any monthly rental or annual service fees which may include a monthly allowance of included call minutes, where stated on your service agreement. Where applicable, we will bill you monthly in arrears for any relevant call charges not included in the annual service fee. For revenue share numbers that are not regulated by the Phone-paid Services Authority, such as 084x numbers, we will send you a rebate statement within two weeks of the end of the month that the calls were made. For revenue share numbers that are regulated by the Phone-paid Services Authority, such as 0871/2 and 09 numbers, we will send you a rebate statement within six weeks of the end of the month that the calls were made.

You can choose to pay us via a range of options including credit card, BACS and standing order. These are agreed at the start of your contract. If you wish to change your method of payment at any time, please call our Customer Service Team.

We provide itemised bills as part of our service to you on request without charge.

If you have difficulty paying your bill, please contact us on 03333 222 123 and we will try to arrange a different method of payment. We will do all we can to help our residential and small business customers to manage their bills and avoid disconnection.

If you are moving home or office
Please call our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123 no later than seven days before your move date. We will amend your account and billing requirements as necessary. We will endeavour to offer you the same telephone number to minimise disruption but please note that for geographic numbers this is not always possible.

Number porting
BUDGET NUMBERS LIMITED recognise that keeping your existing telephone numbers may be important to you. If you move your business to us and wish to keep the number that you have with your old provider, we will arrange it if you ask us. We will work with you to ensure that the services are switched over at a convenient and appropriate time. For more information, please call our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123.

Directory Entries
You are entitled to a Directory Enquiry listing (including an entry in the Phone Book) for both your fixed and mobile telephone numbers. If you do want your details included, please contact our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123.

Complaints
We make every effort to ensure that our customers are happy with the level of service, and the products and service they receive from us. However, despite our best efforts, things can go wrong. We take customer complaints very seriously and aim to resolve them quickly and efficiently.

Our Code of Practice on Complaint Handling and Dispute Resolution explains how customers can complain. The code also provides information on how we deal with complaints and your right to take unresolved complaints to Alternative Dispute Resolution. You can find a copy of our Complaints Code on our website at budgetnumbers.co.uk. Alternatively, copies are available free of charge and on request from our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123.

Nuisance calls
We take the problem of nuisance calls and malicious communications very seriously. We tackle it by working closely with the police and others in the communications industry. If you have been a victim of this activity, please call the Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123 to report the incident and for information on how to deal with it.

We encourage parents to register the mobile phones of their children, and take responsibility for all customer care enquiries.

Services for people with special needs
We are committed to helping all our customers to communicate easily. We offer the following additional services on request for customers who are older or who may have a disability, including:
– Priority fault repair and assistance
– Additional help and support if you have difficulty paying your bill
– Copies of bills in easily resizable PDF format for customers who have difficulty reading their bill.

Copies of this Code are available in larger print, and high contrast or easily resizable PDF format.

Data protection
We comply fully with our obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Part 2 – Budget Numbers Ltd Code of Practice for Premium Rate Services and NTS Calls

Purpose of this Code of Practice

This code informs you about our policies on providing information about Premium Rate Service (PRS) calls and on our charging policy for calls to NTS and PRS numbers.

Premium rate services

Premium rate services (PRS) are telephone numbers that offer some form of information or entertainment that is charged to your phone bill. UK-based PRS numbers are normally prefixed by “09”. 0871 is now also designated as a Premium rate number and subject to PRS regulation. Typical services include TV votelines, mobile ringtone downloads, technical helplines, charity fund-raising and adult entertainment.
Charges for these services are added to your telephone bill. Calling a PRS number generally costs between 8.51 pence and £1.2766 per minute, per call or per text (excl. vat). Calling these services from, for example, mobile phones, cable networks or public payphones will generally cost more than the advertised rate. Our charges for calling these services are shown in our price list, which is available on request from our Customer Services Team and via our website.
If you have a problem with PRS, we can help. We can provide advice on checking the telephone number of any PRS charges that appear on your bill and will try to help you identify the premium rate service provider. We can use call barring to restrict access to “09” numbers. Please call our Customer Service Team on 03333 222 123 for advice on this. We can give you a factsheet on PRS.
You can also ask for help from the Phone-paid Services Authority (formerly PhonepayPlus), which is the industry-funded regulatory body for Premium Rate Services. The Phone-paid Services Authority operates a code of practice that sets out standards for the operation of PRS. You can use the Phone-paid Services Authority website at www.psauthority.org.uk to check PRS numbers direct or to download a complaint form. The Phone-paid Services Authority has legal powers to require a provider of PRS to amend its service or promotional material (or both) and can also impose penalties on content service providers. For other ways to contact the Phone-paid Services Authprity, see the “Useful addresses” section below.

Number translation services

Number translation services (NTS) are based on numbers that are normally pre-fixed “08”. For example, 0800 and 0808 are used to provide freephone services (some freephone services are also provided on 0500 numbers). 0844 and 0845 numbers are used for dial-up pay-as-you-go Internet access and customer service helplines. 0870 numbers are used for information services, technical helplines and telephone banking. They are also used by organisations to help them provide call-management features such as intelligent call routing and fax-to-email services.

Charges for calling services on NTS numbers are added to your telephone bill and standard prices range from free up to 4.2p per minute or per call (excl. vat). Calling these services from, for example, mobile phones, cable networks or public payphones will generally cost more than the advertised rate but communications providers must publish prices for calls to 0870 numbers where these are higher than for calls to geographic numbers. Our charges for calling these services are shown in our price list, which is available on request from our Customer Services Team and via our website. We can also give you a factsheet on NTS.

If you are unhappy with the help you have received from us on a problem with PRS or NTS, please contact the Managing Director of the group Christopher Arscott (tel 0345 056 7777 or email contact@109.203.114.58), who has responsibility for compliance with our code of practice for PRS and NTS. You may also complain using the complaints procedure set out in our complaints code including, ultimately, referring your complaint to Ombudsman Services: Communications.

Internet diallers

If you use the Internet, it is possible for software to be placed on your computer without you knowing – using the same methods as for computer viruses. This type of software (known as Internet or rogue diallers) can then make calls to PRS and NTS numbers without your knowledge. Software is available to detect this activity and we can help you to access this – please contact our Customer Services Team for details. PhonepayPlus has been given responsibility for policing this type of activity and you can contact them via www.phonepayplus.org.uk to ask for help or to report examples of this type of abuse. For other ways to contact the Phone-paid Services Authority, see the “Useful addresses” section below. We can also help by barring calls to 09 numbers.

The Telephone Preference Service

If you don’t want to get sales and marketing calls you have not requested, you can add your details to a list run by the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). If your number is on the list, it is illegal for a company to call you for marketing purposes. You can contact the Telephone Preference Service via www.tpsonline.org.uk or by telephoning 0845 070 0707.

Useful Adresses

Ombudsman Services: Communications – PO Box 730, Warrington WA4 6WU, Tel: 0330 440 1614
Fax: 0330 440 1615
e-mail: enquiries@os-communications.org Website: www.os-communications.org

Ofcom – Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA. Tel: 020 7981 3040 or 0300 123 3333 email: contact@ofcom.org.uk Website: www.ofcom.org.uk

Phone-paid Services Authority (formerly PhonepayPlus)- Clove Building, 4 Maguire Street, London, SE1 2NQ. Tel: 0800 500 212 or 020 7940 7474 Website: www.psauthority.org.uk email info@psauthority.org.uk

Telephone Preference Service – DMA House, 70 Margaret Street, London W1W 8SS Tel: 0845 070 0707 Website: www.tpsonline.org.uk

Federation of Communication Services (FCS) – Burnhill Business Centre, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT. Tel: 020 8249 6363 email: fcs@fcs.org.uk Website: www.fcs.org.uk

Code of Practice on Complaint Handling and Dispute Resolution

BUDGET NUMBERS LIMITED is a trading name of GALAXY NUMBERS LTD an independent company that delivers communications services to domestic and business customers within the UK. While we may not provide all the component parts of our services ourselves, we do take responsibility for the services delivered to you. So we will liaise with our suppliers to ensure that any problems with their services are resolved promptly.

We make every effort to ensure that our customers are happy with the level of service, and the products and service they receive from us. However, despite our best efforts, things can go wrong. We take customer complaints very seriously and aim to resolve them quickly and efficiently.

If you have a complaint about any part of our service, please contact our Customer Service Team using one of the following:

By phone: 03333 222 123 (From 9am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays).
By email: admin@budgetnumbers.co.uk
By letter: Customer Support, Budget Numbers Ltd, 575-599 Maxted Road, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7DX
Website: budgetnumbers.co.uk

If you telephone, our advisors will ask you about your complaint and seek to resolve the problem while you are on the line. During any discussions we will protect the privacy of the information that we hold on you. To do this we may have to ask you questions to confirm that we are speaking to the right person.

If you make your complaint by email or in writing, we will acknowledge receipt, advise how and when we will next respond and provide you with a contact point for checking progress on the resolution of your complaint.

We will try to resolve your complaint quickly and efficiently, and to keep you informed at all times. We normally aim to resolve complaints within 3 working days but, depending on the nature of the complaint, this is not always possible. However, If you are not happy with progress in resolving your complaint you can ask the person to whom you are speaking to escalate the matter to their manager, and ultimately to the Managing Director. If we cannot resolve the problem, we will write to you to say so.

If it has been more than 8 weeks from the date you first contacted us to complain or you have received a letter from us saying that your complaint has reached “deadlock”, then you may ask for help from:

Ombudsman Services: Communications: PO Box 730, Warrington WA4 6WU
Tel: 0330 440 1614
Fax: 0330 440 1615
E-mail: enquiries@os-communications.org
Website: www.os-communications.org

Ombudsman Services: Communications is an independent organisation which is approved by Ofcom to provide an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service. Ofcom-approved ADR services sort out disputes between communications providers and their consumer and small business customers. Their job is to investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sides of the story. They look at the facts given to them before recommending any action that may be needed to put things right.

Alternatively, if at any time you are not satisfied with the progress of your complaint you can ask us to agree an early referral to ADR (i.e. that we issue a deadlock letter). However, we may decline to do so if we do believe we will shortly resolve your complaint and are taking active steps to do so.