Why do online breakers' yards encourage you to call premium phone numbers?

A warning. I used www.breakeryard.com to obtain a set of wheels for winter tyres and received a dozen or so competing emails from breakers. I selected my preferred quote and dialled the mobile number 07013 119 086 to order the part from my own mobile, using my free allowance. I made payment via credit card at the same time and the call took 7.12 minutes to complete. I have the parts, which are correct. On receiving my mobile monthly bill I discovered this number is actually a “premium” number and the call, instead of being free, had cost me £4.60. I checked the email wording (copied below FYI) and found that no warning was given that the number was a premium number. They had also trailed further encouragement to call various garages using such numbers. It is entirely possible that one might be suckered into calls costing £50 or more simply trying to get a decent deal on a spare part. What I should have done is checked the land-line of the supplying breaker and used that.

Asked on 21 January 2012 by RL, Stoke Poges

Answered by Honest John
Fair point. Though, of course, you have to look at the whole deal. Cost of the wheels plus the call, vs cost of the wheels from elsewhere. Other readers have been very happy with used steel wheels obtained via www.partsgateway.co.uk .
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