Have you been charged for premium calls that you didnt make?

[steveh]

Just got my December bill and found I'd been billed £28 for a premium number I never called. No-one in the house could have made it either. Lots of reports of it being a scam number on http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/09083916319 too.

Virgin agreed to drop it, but I slightly resented it being implied that because the Phone Pay Plus website said it was an adult service I might therefore be more likely to be at fault. Don't customer services have an internal database that keeps track of numbers where there's been a problem?

Charging £2 a month to bar premium rate calls in these circumstances is pretty poor...

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by steveh

Just got my December bill and found I'd been billed £28 for a premium number I never called. No-one in the house could have made it either. Lots of reports of it being a scam number on http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/09083916319 too.

Virgin agreed to drop it, but I slightly resented it being implied that because the Phone Pay Plus website said it was an adult service I might therefore be more likely to be at fault. Don't customer services have an internal database that keeps track of numbers where there's been a problem?

Charging £2 a month to bar premium rate calls in these circumstances is pretty poor...

You can get permenant premium bar added to the line for free. Just call 150. HTH

---------- Post added at 17:36 ---------- Previous post was at 17:31 ----------

Originally Posted by Tarantella

If Virgin Media cannot stop tampering with the outside boxes then Premium rate call services should be banned by default whenever services are taken out by a new customer.


Accusing customers down a phone line is cowardly business practice.

I know Telewest used to put premium bar on lines as default on install until the customer requested the removing of the bar.

[poulsen]

28 October 2005
Information provider N/A
Service provider Datapro Services
Information provider location N/A
Service provider location Grays, Essex
Telephone network Opera Telecom Limited
Service type Adult entertainment
Cost £1.50 per minute
Number of complaints 4
Source of complaint Public, Intra-industry

Adjudication Details

The Secretariat was advised by a phone network of complaints from customers that calls were being made to premium rate numbers without their knowledge or consent. The network suspected fraudulent activity after observing that call patterns for the service were unusual, especially in the West London area, with some of the call durations in excess of 20 minutes.

Complaints were also received from members of the public who supplied copies of phone bills showing that calls had lasted over 20 minutes.

The following breaches of the ICSTIS Code of Practice (Tenth Edition) were raised:

· Condition of permission (Paragraph 5.1): One of the conditions of operation set out in the service provider’s permission certificate stipulates that calls are not permitted to exceed 20 minutes in duration.

· Further information (Paragraph 7.2.3): To assist with the investigation, the service provider was asked to provide further information about the service and the way that it operated, including details about age verification procedures and the processes in place for managing complaints about unauthorised use. In addition, call volume and revenue statistics were requested.
The Secretariat received the following response from Datapro Services Ltd.

· Condition of permission (Paragraph 5.1): The service provider stated that the service had been used to generate revenue in a fraudulent manner and claimed that they themselves were a victim of this fraud. They explained that calls had exceeded the stipulated maximum duration because of the actions of a “skilled engineer” operating in a “position of trust”. They added that the individual responsible would have had the ability to abuse the telephone switching network and could have dialled out on several lines simultaneously.

They stated that those customers affected would be remunerated by their telephone network and that the case should be referred to the relevant police authority. They also explained that, because the network in question had disconnected the numbers prior to alerting them to the suspected fraud, they were unable to monitor and investigate the rogue calls.

· Further information (Paragraph 7.2.3): All of the information requested was provided.
The Committee upheld a breach of paragraph 5.1 of the ICSTIS Code of Practice (Tenth Edition). A breach of paragraph 7.2.3 of the Code was not upheld.

As a result, the service provider’s permission to operate the service was suspended until such time as the service has been amended and approved by ICSTIS.

Opera Telecom is now Oxygen8
I realise this is late but thought some of you may be interested in this

more recent Virgin complaints
http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/09041948710
http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/09041948677

and this astonishing claim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsKOtb4pm00

[moaningmags]

We won't be astonished at all, the guy had a whole thread devoted to the subject.

[Samantha82]

I have not long joined BT and, on our phone bill which we just received today, there were pages of telephone numbers that I know I or anybody else in the household did not phone. I think these numbers added up to around £25.00 in total. I didn't make any of the calls listed. I am very puzzled as there are calls to and from various places in Scotland, Ireland and some international codes which look to me like business calls/call centres. Most of the numbers were numbers in the local area which I haven't heard of, but there were also around 11 calls to numbers in Belfast in Ireland and quite a lot to other places in Ireland and Scotland. I really don't want to involve the police in this, because I am very worried that I could get into trouble, seeing as the numbers are on MY phone bill and there is no way (as far as I'm concerned) of proving that it wasn't me or anyone I know who made the calls.

Weirdly, I know someone else who had the exact same problem, only they were charged over £300.