BT Phone Con?

No.

Correct - those are the rules. As a full-paying customer, subsidising the Light User Scheme, I don't want cheats to get away with using the system.

If you don't like the rule talk to Ofcom.

I will take it to Ofcom. How is it being a cheat if I have a pay as you go phone which I never use to make outgoing calls from home?

The rules state you can't be on the Light User Scheme and have "mobile telephone service". The rules were agreed years ago between Oftel and BT. Perhaps they should be changed - good luck with your campaign.

So this teaches you not to be honest then. Anyone else wanting to do this, and not wanting to lie, can thus lend their mobile to someone else for the day, then apply.

If you'd like the simplest possible diary for 2006 in Word97 or .txt format:

In message , Mick wrote

You are also excluded from the low user tariff if you use your telephone for the Internet, often paying some third party for the associated call charges.

The reasoning is that the "light user" scheme is provided as a public service by BT for people who can't really afford to have a telephone at all but need one for emergencies. The name is perhaps a misnomer: it's really a "telephone service for the poor who make few calls because they can't afford it, not from choice". Calling it a "light user" scheme avoids insulting or patronising its target market.

The rules are designed to exclude those who aren't poor and those who have a mobile phone aren't considered to be poor. That's perhaps not a very good test nowadays with the low cost of PAYG phones but the priciple is still valid: this is a subsidised service for the poor.

Mike.

The thing I find strange is that if you have no mobile yet have ADSL you are banned from LUS, yet if instead of ADSL you have Sky you are OK.

If being "poor" is the important then I would have thought that something like proof of being on benefits would be better, but I guess a lot of people on benefits often have quite a bit of disposable cash.

A campaign is your choice of words. I am a light user of both my BT line and Pay as you go mobile. I do not see any reason why I should be excluded from the BT light user scheme. It is academic now in many way as I have taken my custom elsewhere. However, I will contact ofcom as I think the policy is wrong.

Is there a link to the rules on the net?

IIRC they`re in the front of the phone book.

In message , Mick wrote

Document in pdf format at

In message , Adrian Boliston writes

If you had ADSL you could punt all your calls through Skype or Sipgate or somesuch.

You can't get the low user tarrif if you use the internet.

Depends on *how* you use the internet.

If you have ADSL you are barred.

If you use dialup but make very few calls (ie a "light user") you are OK.

In article , mogga writes

This is what your looking for, but might not like what it sez;!...

Alan wrote

It occurred to me that this might be what he was doing. ;-)

What is it that you don't understand about the LUS being a

It has been decided (not unreasonably IMHO) that anyone who can afford to pay mobile phone costs (even PAYG costs) cannot be part of the set "less well off" and is therefore not entitled to have their phone costs subsidisied by all

tim

That criteria is unsustainable , because all you need do is lie 'no i dont have a mobile' and you are in. OTOH, the archetypal 'little old lady' whose relative may have given her a PAYG phone for emergencies only, might well answer 'yes' and be locked out.