THE service has only been running for a few days, but consumers are already making a connection between the new directory inquiries and a rip-off.

Our survey of the 118 companies discovered widespread incompetence.

There are almost as many problems as numbers. Operators who live in a different hemisphere struggling to locate British businesses. Call centres with technology so slow that it takes an age to find one number. Staff who have gone "live" with the bare minimum of training. And this chaos is only available if you can get through in the first place.

It used to be so simple. There was one number, 192, and until 1991 it was provided free by BT. That is how it should have remained. BT made money from every phone call made after a directory inquiries search.

Making us pay for 192 was like a train company charging us for timetable information. But at least we got a reasonable service for our 40p. We could even talk to someone who lived in the same country as us - in York, we were fortunate to be connected to operators based in our own city, at Stonebow House, until it was closed last year.

Then phone regulator Oftel decided to ring the changes. The idea, as with every privatisation, was to make the service cheaper and easier to use.

The new 118 services fail on both counts. Price tariffs are so confusing that it is impossible for a consumer to work out the best option. Hidden extras often crank up the cost. You can be charged for connection, or pay more the longer you are kept waiting - a ludicrous anomaly for what should be an express service.

Oftel must now strive to make the best of a bad job. We hope it is monitoring the new 118 companies closely, and will pull the plug on those which are trying to do a number on the dialling public.

Updated: 10:34 Monday, September 01, 2003