Example of why Tories are anti-capitalist - mobile phone charges

[Baron von Lotsov]

You can't just say they were charged £1.80, you have to add detail. Was it to Australia, where were they?

National



Besides it is futile to claim it is a one-off. I was ripped a fiver for about five minutes. That will be the last though. I've worked out a work-around. I do not pay thieves as a matter of principle.

[patman post]

There are over 60 mobile network operators in the UK all with their own offers. Although they all run their services over four major carriers, theIr plans vary considerably. Some offer wi-fi calling.

What is worrying is that now these operators have rationalised their roaming charges, it's not clear that this user-friendly reduction in costs will continue once the UK leaves the EU...

[Churchill]

I use WhatsApp most of the time when calling family and friends all free

[Nick]

It's the way the pricing is structured. My parents made a two minute call and they were charged £1.80. All the phone companies do this if that is the amount of service you wish to purchase from them, albeit perhaps their charges are slightly different. Perhaps a different company would charge £1.75 say for those two minutes. Then I go into Morrisons, and at the counter the same firms are selling other people two minutes of identical service for about 2p. This is extreme market distortion given what i explained above. I have not really researched mobile charges but I did so with landlines and found an identical pricing structure across all operators I checked. For a one minute call it is about 30p. That's about 100 times what it cost them. With such criminal markups it matters little whether you get charged 27p for that minute or 34p.

You can't just say they were charged £1.80, you have to add detail. Was it to Australia, where were they?

[Baron von Lotsov]

I did read your post, but the first paragraph is untrue. There is no cartel which mirrors pricing exactly, which kind of destroys the rest of your "Tories are anti-capitalist" argument.

Some stupid people pay more than £5 a month for their mobile service, I pay £10 every 4 months.

Any questions?

It's the way the pricing is structured. My parents made a two minute call and they were charged £1.80. All the phone companies do this if that is the amount of service you wish to purchase from them, albeit perhaps their charges are slightly different. Perhaps a different company would charge £1.75 say for those two minutes. Then I go into Morrisons, and at the counter the same firms are selling other people two minutes of identical service for about 2p. This is extreme market distortion given what i explained above. I have not really researched mobile charges but I did so with landlines and found an identical pricing structure across all operators I checked. For a one minute call it is about 30p. That's about 100 times what it cost them. With such criminal markups it matters little whether you get charged 27p for that minute or 34p.

[Barry]

I did read your post, but the first paragraph is untrue. There is no cartel which mirrors pricing exactly, which kind of destroys the rest of your "Tories are anti-capitalist" argument.

Some stupid people pay more than £5 a month for their mobile service, I pay £10 every 4 months.

Any questions?

[Baron von Lotsov]

Capitalists believe in fair trade. However our telecom's industry, and particularly the mobile communication side of it, is run by a cartel who mirror pricing exactly, so as to rip customers 50+ times the cost of the services in many cases.



Well as we know, they have been in power long enough to do what they mean to do. It's not even the fault of the EU either. You see EU competition law is as tough as nails. It states any actions of a company which cause market distortion is illegal. Market distortion can come in many forms. For example, if you buy one widget then you buy two, an undistorted market would mean two widgets cost twice as much as one widget. It's a linear relationship except when we are talking about bulk orders where it is cheaper to supply a large quantity than supplying each one separately. Of course this is all done electronically in the telecom's sector so the cost difference in supply of different quantities of talk time is zero. Two minutes should cost twice as much as one minute.



So there you have it. Far from Tories being capitalist, they prefer to keep these criminal operations running so their mates can work as directors and keep on living in huge mansions, while the rest scrape for a living.



Of course Labour are just as anti-capitalist, so I'm not suggesting you should get any impression they are any better. This scamming has been going on for decades, although most believe the lie that the Tories are pro-fair trade.