Reminds me of the deal where charities used to pay the first so-many months of each donors collected direct debits to the company that signed them up; but after bad publicity (after all it’s a very inefficient way to donate even if it is an efficient way for the charity to collect [thats cos it’s the donor thats paying]) they stopped doing this and instead effectively “bought” a load of donors from the same companies (i.e. the donors own donation was not literally used to buy the donor) – however it all amounts to pretty much the same thing, that it is an inefficient way to donate.

The same thing is done with 084x 087x numbers, the company advertising the number no longer collects revenue but may receive a discount on call-centre services, etc.

So really it was a poorly worded question, it should have related to how much callers were having to pay (many callers have free geographic calls these days).