money stealing bt

dalore

So what do you know? I get my bt bill and go to analyse it to see how I can save a few pennies. What do I find?

Other,0208XXXXXXX,,,06/09/2005,08:48,,123,00:00:02,0.000,£0.170

In english, a 17p call to the phone number '123' at 8:48am on the 6th of September lasting 2 seconds.

That's strange I thought, is 123 even a real phone number? A quick search on bt reveals that it's the speaking clock for 20p. Hmm, I never called no speaking clock, that's not money saving.

And even stranger, I was in Australia on the 6th of September and during that time the phones and computers were all unplugged from the wall and turned off for 3 whole weeks.

Is bt infilitrated with some hacker virus program that randomly selects accounts and hits them with a tiny fee hoping the user doesn't notice or care? Imagine how much that could add up to and whose account it's going into.

Hey even tho its 17p, I'll see what happens when I ask them about it.

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dalore

ginger_nuts

even BT get it wrong sometimes .But I guess YOU will have to prove they are wrong

DonnyDave

ginger_nuts wrote:

even BT get it wrong sometimes .But I guess YOU will have to prove they are wrong

What about travel tickets and a receipt from the holiday company?

Did you leave your key with someone to look after your house? Is it possible it was them? Maybe they took their child who dialed 123 not knowing it was the speaking clock.

dalore

Nope, there was not a living (or dead) soul in the house. No pets to look after, no maid, nobody.

Everything was turned off and unplugged.

I still got the boarding passes (need it to make sure the airmiles are claimed) so it shouldn't be a hassle proving we weren't there.

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dalore
(*Dons his conspiracy hat and mumbles in the corner*)

paul666

Could it be your sky box?
There was a joke e-mail that said if you changed your phone prefix to 123 then you can get sky box-office for free...

2ax

I also heard that it was people reprogramming sky phone numbers

dalore

Nope, don't have sky. Nothing else on the phone line, no alarm.

Got a response back from bt:

Thank you for your e-mail dated 22/10/05 about a Call Charge.

With regards to your e mail, I would like to inform you that the call charge in question is a Reminder Call (alarm).

Since you informed us that you and your partner were in country and phone was
unplugged from wall. I am waiving the charges of 17p. You will see it as a credit on your next bill.

My guess is someone asked for a reminder call alarm and got it sent to the wrong phone number. Who really knows. The mysteries of bt.

If this is the case, someone of a more evil nature might use it a sneaky way to cause someone he dislikes to be woken up early and increase his phone bill. Hope that's not what happened to me.

onzey

I may be wrong but I think reminder calls can only be set up from the phone that the alarm call is going to ring on (dial * 55 * , dial the time you want alarm, press #).
We've used it a few times when going away just in case clock radio lets us down. However, I don't remember it appearing as a call to the speaking clock on the bill. Haven't used it for some while though.

ginger_nuts

glad you got it sorted .I just rembered a few years ago when my neice was visiting me she dialed 123 on at least 2 occasions .I think she thought it was nice there was on the phone talking to her .

bunking_off

I don't work for BT, indeed work for a competitor.

However, reading this thread, it appears you spotted an error on your bill and contacted customer services, who explained what the bill item was supposed to be for, and with the information you gave them determined that it was probably erroneous hence wrote it off.

In the circumstances, had you considered changing the title of this thread?

MDUK

bunking_off wrote:

I don't work for BT, indeed work for a competitor.

However, reading this thread, it appears you spotted an error on your bill and contacted customer services, who explained what the bill item was supposed to be for, and with the information you gave them determined that it was probably erroneous hence wrote it off.

In the circumstances, had you considered changing the title of this thread?

I think that is a fair point, personally i don't necesarily get upset when things go wrong after all mistakes happen to the best of us. It's how they are dealt with that really matters. That is how i judge a company.