New directory enquiry service benefits Samaritans

Howard Lake | 11 December 2002 | News

Onetel, one of the ten new telephone directory services launched yesterday to replace the standard 192 service, will donate 1p for every call received to the Samaritans for one year.

Ten new telephone directory enquiry services launched yesterday, all of them with the 118 number prefix. Onetel is one of these and has announced that it will donate 1p per call received to the Samaritans.

Calls to Onetel’s UK enquiries number (118111) will cost 35p, five pence less than BT’s service they point it, and 1p will be donated to the Samaritans for 12 months from 1 January 2003.

The former directory enquiries monopoly was opened up to competition by Oftel. The changes are designed to give people the option of choosing which company they make directory enquiries calls with.

“This is an important opportunity for One.Tel and we thought it was a good idea to give a worthy cause like Samaritans the chance to benefit too”, said Ian El-Mokadem, One.Tel’s Managing Director. “Directory enquiries is a vital service whether you’re booking a taxi, searching for a plumber or looking for Samaritans’ number and now you can choose who you call to get that information from our new 118111 number.”

The current 192 / 153 numbers will continue to be operated until August 2003.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.