Reverse Charge Calls To USA

[NigelB72]

@ploppy you'd need to call the BT international operator and ask for a collect or reverse charge call to the number and they would connect the call. 

Once accepted by the called party, the billing would be reversed to their billing and no charge to yourself.

[ploppy]

"Once accepted by the called party ..." is the thing that baffled me until I thought about it. An automated message that says "operator, this number accepts reverse charges" is probably enough for the Int Op to allow the call to continue and reverse the charge. That's what I've concluded anyway.

[NigelB72]

@ploppy unless booked as a collect/reverse charge call, the operator would/should have left the call once it was ringing.

[ploppy]

So when I ask the international operator to make a reverse change call to the number I give her, and she dials it, am I correct in thinking that when she hears the automated response “operator, this number accepts reverse charge calls” she then puts me through and does something so that the receiver is charged for the call. Sorry to spell it out in baby steps but I’ve never done this before.

[iniltous]

I’m assuming you didn’t contact the operator to connect the call  ( that’s what  I’d think the correct process should be )  you call the BT international operator , if a BT customer using your BT account line , and ask for a reverse charge call to *********, presumably that’s a conventional person to person call normally , the operator asks if the recipient is willing to accept the charge , (in your case this is the deemed consent given by the automated voice recording ) the call is connected and timed , at this point you only ever called the operator on a ‘free’ number …the operator at the end of the call , when you clear down , knows the duration and destination, so arranges to bill the recipients network operator , who bill the recipients for the call cost , but critically its BT they refund , not you , this ‘call’ may only ever show on your bill as an operator assistance call to BT and be free or possibly only the handling free is charged to you , not the call cost….you effectively subverted the process by calling the number yourself directly rather than via the operator, so that international call can’t be on anything other than your account, and can’t be retrospectively charged to the recipient….you may have called the same number as what the BT operator would have done , but you made the call not the international operator.

Presumably the reason why the bank has this arrangement rather than a conventional freephone number , is that they would need an 0800 type number is every country rather than a single number and an automatic acceptance of reverse charging provided the call goes through the operator 

[ploppy]

Thanks.  That's pretty much what I thought - now that I've had time to investigate the issue.

Rather than an 800 they could set up a Universal International Freephone Number (UIFN) - maybe they don't think it's worth it.  I regularly call another institution in the USA - they provide a UIFN, which is nice.