Premium and Strange Phone Numbers

[Neal]

I've recently received a large phone bill from Virgin, and as such have asked them to send me an itemised list as the ones on their customer pages is not very accurate, their words, not mine.

One number that caught my eye was for an 09 number, a 15 minute call which costs around £25+. Me or my wife are not easily conned and would never ring a number like that. We have mobiles, the land line is mainly used for local calls or calls to utility companies (08**).

At the time of the call, 15:30, no one would have been in the house as my partner was at work, and I was at school to pick our child up who finished at 15.30. I tend to arrive early to park.

We have had problems in the past with receiving calls for another person, obviously the person who had the number before. Also we experienced a lot of noise on the line and "echo", like someone else was monitoring the call. Virgin seems to have solved this issue since my last complaint.

For now I've asked Virgin to block outgoing calls and only allow incoming. I've also removed the phone from the line, just in case there's a ghost in our house. Mainly just to prove without doubt.

Once the itemised bill comes I will be marking calls that we know we haven't made and contacting Virgin again. Has anyone else had problems with weird numbers on their bills?

[Neal]

Well the itemised bill arrived, and I can't understand it. It's all muddled up and hard to read clearly. No doubt I've been charged £2 for it.

I've spoken again to Virgin complaints who insist the calls came from our house. They said they can send out an engineer to investigate our line, but that would cost £90 if the calls came from our house. Well the bill shows that they did, so what will an engineer do? In the end I told them to send an engineer out, but they instead put me through to another team.

We don't call premium phone numbers, and a call was made when I know for sure no one was in our house. Virgin also said it could have been an 08 number masking a premium rate number and we need to contact the companies involved. Why should I make phone calls at my expense to call companies I or my wife never heard of?

I'm not arguing about this any more. We haven't made the calls, and if calls have been masked, Virgin should be doing something about it. I've contacted PhonePayPlus and will be making further complaints to the correct authorities. I'm not paying for something that we haven't used.

Also now I've been told I face having my services disconnected as due to these calls, my bills are high and reaching their credit limits. I paid my last bill in full and my current one isn't due until 20/10/2010. Now I know why my internet is slow again.

[vanman]

i can see that you have cable broadband but do you have a modem on your computer that is connected to the phone line ' if so then it could be one of them automated phone dialing malicious script.

Modem Hijacking
This is perhaps one of the most prevalent scams on the Internet today. When you visit a web site, you'll often see pop-up ads that ask you various questions and offer you a variety of services. To receive them, all you have to do is select yes on one or more ads. If you haven't read the fine print, however, you can unwittingly be agreeing to have software downloaded to your modem, which then instructs your modem to make long distance calls to overseas pay-per-call services. These calls can result in hundreds of dollars in charges. This usually impacts dial-up customers, rather than broadband customers. Often you don't know this has happened until you receive your next phone bill.

[Neal]

No, the modem is separate and only connected to the wireless router Virgin provided.

I'm just about to ring Virgin again, my internet has really degraded. It's becoming quite annoying now.

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Neal

No, the modem is separate and only connected to the wireless router Virgin provided.

I'm just about to ring Virgin again, my internet has really degraded. It's becoming quite annoying now.

no! sorry has the computer got a phone modem built in that is connected to landline phone socket

[Neal]

Originally Posted by vanman

no! sorry has the computer got a phone modem built in that is connected to landline phone socket

Ah apologies, no the computer isn't connected to the phone line. It's wireless to the router.