An unusal problem

FRED1367

About 4 months ago I started receiving several call from different mobile users claiming that my telephone number is displayed on their mobile as 'missed call'. Not having made any calls to mobile I reported this matter to Toucan. They checked my line and reported no fault. The calls continued and a BT engineer was sent to my place to check my internal connection and extensions. No fault was found but he recommended removing one of the extension which he thought was 'suspect'. This was done but the calls continued unabated despite the fact that a block was placed on ringing mobile numbers. This matter was referred to BT via Toucan on several occasions. All tests proved negative but the calls continued coming. It is now 4 months and this problem is still unresolved. To add insult to injury I am now being charged £ 50.00 for the engineer call out charge. I have refused to pay this since no fault was found on my premises and the problem is still unresolved. Toucan is pressurising me to pay offering me a £ 20.00 goodwill gesture. Wait a minute! They charge me £ 50.00 for not fixing a problem and they offer me £ 20.00 to accept this. Needless to say that I turned them away. I have now referred this matter to ofcom.
What I have learnt from this is:
There is a serious problem of communication between Toucan and BT. Having my line rental with Toucan stops me from talking directly to BT. I can only talk to the organ grinder via the monkey. THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS: Think CAREFULLY BEFORE SWITCHING YOUR LINE RENTAL TO SAVE A QUID OR TWO.
When I decided to switch my line rental to Toucan, I was told that the contract was for twelve months, but what I was NOT told was that I could take the option of a non-contractual agreement for £1 dearer ( £9.95 instead £ 8.95).
Everytime I reported the fault to Toucan, I was told that BT has closed the case since the problem has been fixed ( which is not the case). The whole process had to be started all over again. THERE IS NO DIRECT FEEDBACK TO THE CUSTOMER FROM BT OR TOUCAN.
I have been sent from pillar to post by various Toucan department since everyone claim it is someone else's responsibility.
Finally, I want to know if this problem is unique. Does anyone know of anyone who has faced similar problem?

BexTech

May this be a warning to others, though this warning of only using BT for line rental is something I and many others have been saying since day one, yet people still ignore the warning, thinking they can save money when switching, when in fact the only time you would save money when switching, is if you don't make any phone calls and don't have services like caller display.

Moving line rental from BT means you no longer have the option of saving money on phone calls, so if you do need a phone line to make phone calls, then you aren't going to be saving anything, and most times you will end up paying more when you move line rental.

hammy_the_hammer

fred i am 99.9999% certain that this problem would not occur with a fault on the line ....with the advent of 112 to dial the emergency services it became possible for a faulty line to tap out 1 then 1 then 2 ....but that's about as far as you would get with a fault dialling out on the line ie there's no way that you would get a line fault tapping out random mobile phone numbers.....any visit to your premises would result in a charge as it could only be equipment on the line dialling out (an alarm for example)...so as soon as an engineer came out you were going to get billed.
if your line has been barred from making calls to mobiles and this problem still persists i'd wonder about whether the calls you are getting are people who have possibly misread the number and then dialled...has a business got a similar tele. no. to yourself ? do you receive wrong no. calls normally (not mobile ones)?

BexTech

This problem though is happening to a large number of people, on BT and cable lines.

People ARE getting calls on their mobiles and ringing them straight back from the called number list, so there is no way people are mis-reading them.

This is happening to many people, but no one is sure what is the cause of the problem.

DonnyDave

It is possible to 'spoof' caller ID numbers to make it look as though a call is coming from another number or a number which does not exist. So maybe someone is doing this.

Have calls to the people that have been calling you appeared on your bill? Surely Toucan should be able to tell you this.

On the subject of the engineer's callout, if the fault is found to be on the subscriber's own equipment or wiring, then he/she should foot the bill.

If the fault is to do with any of BT's wiring, then it should be fixed by BT at no cost to you. This is because you pay your provider rental for a working line and therefore you don't pay extra for any faults that may develop in it.

Whenever you report a fault to which an engineer is going to attend, you should always be warned that if the fault is found to be with your own equipment, then you will have to pay for the visit. Did the Toucan operator do this?

Now you phoned up to report what you were experiencing and not necessarily to call out an engineer, did you not? So was it the person you spoke to who decided to report a fault?

Surely every call to customer services to report a problem is not necessarily a technical fault on the line. So these people should have basic technical knowledge and common sense that this is most probably not a line fault.

Can you give any more details about the extension the engineer disconnected? If this was not causing the fault, then you should argue that the callout was unnecessary.

From what you've said, my feeling is that Toucan should foot the bill for not training its staff correctly. As a result of this, a callout was made which was unnecessary.

My advice is to complain to in writing to Toucan. If you get no-where, then go to OTELO (The Ombudsman).