what goes a round

[valkyriekaren]

Got a letter from BT the other day explaining the changes to my broadband package costs due to the change in VAT.

It contained the following:

Amending VAT to 17.5% resulted in some inconsistent prices, so we've rounded down some prices and rounded up others. More prices have been rounded down than up.

For example, our Evening and Weekend plan would

Comments

[silenttex]

Monthly line rental will have been increased because everyone will have to pay that, and 2p x the number of BT customers is a significant amount per month. The others will have been "rounded" down to encourage more people to take them up.
As pointed out by battlekitty it's also in line with the marketing concept that people will generally see £x.99 as just £x.

[valkyriekaren]

Yes, but that's not what 'rounding' means! Rounding means you take it to the next significant digit, whether that's 10, 0, 0.1 or whatever. Not to the nearest random number you think looks good for marketing reasons!

[silenttex]

Which is why I used "rounded" rather than rounded.

[d_floorlandmine]

people will generally see £x.99 as just £x
Thus helpfully going towards proving the hypothesis that "many people are dumb". Although I've always wondered how many people are actually taken in by that, or whether it's just one of those things that marketers say? Especially at the lower end, rather than the 389.99 seeming closer to £300 rather than £400 end ...

[shadowdaddy]

And for Extra Credit, taking into consideration the various lower charges, how long before the 2p increase balances out the postage they spent to tell you about it?

[steer]

9 is round compared with 1 because 1 is pointy but 9 is curvy.

[valkyriekaren]

Ah, I knew a mathematician would be able to explain.

I was going with, 'because BT are on crack and so power-crazed that they think they can alter the nature of reality'.