Broken stop tap

[Paul Barker]

Broke yet another street stop tap other day, had to wait 20 minutes on an 0845 number to get past Will Young, then 3 hours for 2hr response emergency guy to come and restore the supply.

Anyhow the doohicky they use is like a basin wrench well similar in tecnology. ANyone ever had these made or know of an off the shelf product. (or work for the water board and want to sell one out the back door?)Has a hole in it, half shrouded by a v, on other side a nurled wheel applies pressure forcing the bare stop tap shaft against the v?

I recon it would be a good investment so we could restore the supply and then just write to the water board to say what we have done. Saving us an expensive 0845 call and a long time twiddling our thumbs waiting for them.

Shouldn't there be a law which states that if you use a premium rate number you should upon picking up (and so starting to charge) talk to the caller or else not pick up? This should be made illegal.

Or else I'm getting me an 0845 number and a tape loop. Because as Chris points out there is no money in plumbing.

 

[breezer]

0845 is not a premium rate number.

the idea i that you call the same number where ver you are in the uk, the exchange then diverts you to the call centre nearest to your location.

eg.

you are in cornwall you get directed to say plymouth.

you are in scotland, you get directed to say arbroath

but if you had the "ordainairy number" you could be in corwall and you would in actual fact be calling arbroath, not really a lot of use.

also if one call centre loses its phone lines, they can be redirected (without you knowing) to the nearest available call centre, but they would be ready for calls from outside their area.

the other thing is at night / weekends etc, one centre may close, so your calls are redirected to the 24 hour call centre.

the idea being they save money on having say 6 call centres open at "quiet times" so they only have say 1 centre open, so not having to pay for 6 centres / heating wages etc for them to sit there and do almost nothing.

the downside is sometimes they get more calls than aniticipated so you have to wait, or being a call centre staff are quite often sick.

also i beleive that 0870 0845 etc numbers are charged by the minute, whereas 0906 etc are charged by the second, but i may be wrong on that one