Bypass pricey 13 or 1800 numbers? There's an app for that

Stephen Withers
Friday, 05 August 2011 09:12

Your IT - Mobility

Why pay $1 per minute to call a 1300 number from your mobile when there's an easy way to reach the equivalent number as a normal national call that's included in your plan?

One good reason for keeping your landline is that making calls to 13 and 1800 numbers from a mobile tends to be on the expensive side - certainly more than the local call fee or free call that applies to fixed-line phones.

If you're on a plan that treats such calls differently - eg, it excludes them from the cap, or charges more than the normal per-minute rate - there's a strong incentive to avoid them. That's especially the case where your call isn't answered by a human but instead is automatically dumped into a queue.

So as a side project, low-cost mobile provider Amaysim's IT director Julian Dell has designed an iPhone app called 13save that reveals the regular phone number that corresponds to over 100 13/1800 numbers for organisations such as banks, telcos, and other large institutions including some government agencies.

The app, developed by Funkworks, automatically updates its database with the latest information, and includes a facility to request the addition of a number.

Such numbers are often available from the organisation's web site or other sources, perhaps as the number to dial when calling from overseas. But 13save's $1.99 price tag buys a lot of convenience.

An Android version is under consideration.