I had a dealing with DTC Direct recently and I was surprized by how helpful they were. Because I have a lot of family overseas, I was intersted in their international rates to the US. Signed up and it only cost 1.5p a minute to call there. So, I'm happy 
1.5p a min to fone internationally? Is that right? That sounds rely good. Might check them out, do u have a contact number or sumfin?
1.5p a min is certainly not the price quoted in the latest DTC tariff ("price and information correct as of Thu 01 Sep 2011") [1]
Calls to USA
DTC Standard Price : 12.0p min inc VAT
DTC Price with International Call Saver Bolt-On : 5.0p min inc VAT
All International Calls have a setup per call:
DTC Standard Setup Fee: 10.8p inc VAT
DTC Bolt-On Setup Fee 12.5p inc VAT
Shockingly bad call tariffs.
From
Companies House records: [2]
Registered Company Name: Docklands Telecom Centre Limited (trading as DTC Direct)
Registered Company No.: 03330653
Registered Office:
Unit 9
Ashton Gate Industrial Estate
Ashton Road
ROMFORD
RM3 8UF
Directors:
Mr David CURRAN, 45, of 18 Parkstone Avenue, HORNCHURCH, RM11 3LU (Director ID: 905214842)
Ms Deborah CURRAN, 45, c/o Charles Whiting Solicitors, 39 Moulsham Street, CHELMSFORD, CM2 0HY (Director ID: 905197441)
This outfit are well known to OFCOM. On 12 September 2011, the Regulator served
DTC Direct with a Statutory Notice under s.94 of the
Communications Act 2003. The OFCOM investigation into
DTC Direct is ongoing. [3]
The 2003 Act forbids outfits like
DTC Direct from
"engaging in dishonest, misleading or deceptive conduct; (b) engaging in aggressive conduct, contacting the Customer in an inappropriate manner; and engaging in 'Slamming'"There is long-running thread about
DTC Direct on the forum at [4].
The company is reportedly involved in profit-driven
'Drop Calling'. That is another unlawful practice. Here, auto-dialling equipment is used to parallel dial many thousands of numbers every hour. Those calls are automatically dropped after just a single 'ping' of the bell in the callee's phone.
Out of courtesy or curiosity, some of those called by the auto-dialler will ring the number presented by 1471 and CLI equipment.
DTC Direct earns a slice of the interconnect fees from those returned calls. Revenues are typically 30%. For calls to a 'Specialised Number' in a higher charge band, the revenues are particularly lucrative.
The
Bundesnetzagentur, the German network agency, calls this the
Pingan-Rufe fraud or the
'Ping Call ' fraud [5]
Cold-calling anyone whose telephone number is listed on the TPS database, whether calling them manually or with auto-dialling kit, is a contravention of the
Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. [6]
Anyone whose number is registered in the
Telephone Preference Service database and is still aggrieved by a cold-caller should by-pass the TPS which is industry-funded and toothless. The violation should be reported directly to the
Information Commissioner using a
Section 32 Enforcement Request under the 2003 Regulations. There is an email form to do this at [7].
[1]
http://www.dtcdirect.co.uk/ewcommon/tools/download.ashx?docId=50[2]
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03330653[3]
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/enforcement/competition-bulletins/open-cases/all-open-cases/cw_01045/DTC_Direct.pdf[4]
http://www.sennir.co.uk/Journal/75[5]
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.abo-falle.de/ping-anrufe/[6]
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/made/data.pdf[7]
http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/privacy_and_electronic_communications.aspx
