I dont know when they did this but at last now you can have premium rate #'s barred without killing just about every major uk company and a very large quantity of small and medium sized firms.
I remember when I first discovered this after barring premium rate #'s some time ago, I suddenly couldnt get 0870. A call to CS and CS told me 0870 is in the premium rate band, so I laughed and said thats ridiculous 0870 is std national rate, and he said well our systems says its premium rate, I got to a manager and he confirmed it so I told him you cant do that, move it. He replied cant be done its fixed and thats it, so I laughed and said give me your name, thanks now as you cannot put 0870 into a correct category you can remove the premium bar and by the way if any premium rates are ever applied to my account its your fault because you cannot control it properly, therefore i will not pay should any ever show. I wished him farewell and advised him i will be notifying oftel.
Guess these 2 from CS were prime candidates for the matrix as they do what the computers say, NTL must have an employee going by the name Neo as some1 managed to instruct a computer and not vice versa.
Wonder if anyone else also complained to help get oftel off their square behinds on this one.