Block premium rate numbers

[paulshears]

How do I stop being entrapped by premium rate numbers such as the Virgin Media number 0870 8883116? 

I need to block this number urgently. 

Please advise on a practical solution. 

[paulshears]

One member of EE staff informs me that this is not the case.
Outgoing premium numbers cannot be blocked.
It's outgoing calls that I want to block. As you know this is what incurs significant costs.
The caller rings the victim and the victim returns the call.
Additionally if the victim is visually challenged, then they will be oblivious of any visual warning.
I cannot use text message's for example as a means of communication and nor do I see much that is on a web site.
Laptops and other such devices are useless to me for this reason.
I am far from unique in this.

There used to be a way of blocking these numbers but it seems to have been withdrawn about a year ago judging from ​an EE blog site message.

Please advise.
Paul Shears

[Chris_B]

@paulshears  Outgoing premium rate calls can be blocked.   It’s an option in your account.   It’s called call abroad and premium rate numbers you just make sure it’s turned off.  

If you want to block outgoing calls this means if need to call someone in an emergency you won’t be able to because it will block all outgoing calls. 

[paulshears]

Well given that I have just been charged £55 for about five minutes utterly fruitless interaction, it sounds pretty premium to me. The rest of the time, over an hour in total, I was kept waiting on the line by an algorithm. When I eventually got a totally unproductive human being on the number, he told me that he had only just received the call.

It's outgoing calls that I want to block. As you know this is what incurs significant costs.

The caller rings the victim and the victim returns the call.

Additionally if the victim is visually challenged, then they will be oblivious of any visual warning.

I cannot use text message's for example as a means of communication and nor do I see much that is on a web site.

Laptops and other such devices are useless to me for this reason.

I am far from unique in this.

Please advise.

Paul Shears

[paulshears]

I cannot make head or tail of this web site. Searching for how to block premium rate numbers yielded nothing. 

Additionally if the victim is visually challenged, then they will be oblivious of any visual warning.

I cannot use text message's for example as a means of communication and nor do I see much that is on a web site.

Laptops and other such devices are useless to me for this reason.

I am far from unique in this.

Please advise.

Paul Shears

[paulshears]

One member of staff informed me that this is no longer the case. 

But there must surely be some way of stopping this scam. 

Blocking all emergency numbers would be fine with me. 

[Chris_B]

@paulshears   You can not block out going calls. You can block premium rate numbers from being dialled.   On your account you need to go to roaming and turn off call abroad and make premium rate calls.   

[Chris_B]

@paulshears   On the my EE app it looks like this and this option needs to be off

[paulshears · Accepted solution]

AMAZING!!!!!!! 

Thank you for encouraging me to repeat the call that I made this morning. 

Success! All thanks to you. 😁

As the helpdesk person explained to me a few minutes ago, the customer CANNOT block 0870 numbers themselves via the EE web site (The premium rate category does not include 0870 numbers). 

But EE can do this for the customer providing they ring and speak to someone who knows how to do this.

Many thanks!  🤗🙂

Paul Shears . 

[Schockwave]

@paulshears , glad you got it sorted to your satisfaction, thank you for coming back and letting us know.

[bristolian]

A £55 charge for 5minutes on an 0870 number is going some - EE's access charge for these calls is 73p/minute, meaning the service charge (levied by the organisation you're calling) would need to be in excess of £9/minute.

That sort of charge is feasible with an 09x premium-rate number, but seems wildly excessive for an 084/087 service number.

As per other posts, the premium-rate block will stop calls to 09x numbers but not do anything for 084 or 087 prefixes.