Virgin Media phone customers beware of phantom calls

£&*£(£)*

I have a Virgin Media phone line, but I don't use it. No phones plugged in so I can't use it at all.

Last month I had a mystery 1 minute call for 23p. Strange. I emailed them, they called, apologised and offered me £5 payoff for their mistake.

This month: 23p not refunded, no sign of that £5. But even more phantom calls - £4.22 of them!

So I need to have another go at them.

But these stick out to me as I don't use the phone line at all. For those of you that make lots of regular calls, any phony charges may not be readily apparent to you. So be vigilant.

Buzby

Need more info - just because there's no phone plugged in doesn;t mean calls can't be charged. What was the time/date and destination? Were you in when the calls were made? VM will usually accept an initial protestation and arrange a credit, but this is for goodwill, it doesn't get down to the real issue at hand. Your line me be inadvertently teed with another, and it is this user who is billing your line. With nothing connected, how do you know they are not answering your calls?

In a similar situation, a call recorder that sits across the line, and records anything when it goes live will get to the bottom of it.

£&*£(£)*

Buzby wrote: »

Need more info - just because there's no phone plugged in doesn;t mean calls can't be charged.

Erm, come again? I'm trying to think of that statement as anything other than stupid, but am failing.

Phone calls cannot be made on a line if there is no apparatus to make calls. Simple.

Buzby wrote: »

What was the time/date and destination?

Is that relevant to you? I can provide if so, but I wouldn't have thought so.

Buzby wrote: »

Were you in when the calls were made?

Was in where? My home? What, in case radiation from the sun travelled through my body and into the phone sockets and magically dialled numbers? Sorry, sarcasm, but just trying to understand where you're coming from with this odd questions...

Buzby wrote: »

VM will usually accept an initial protestation and arrange a credit, but this is for goodwill, it doesn't get down to the real issue at hand.

Like !!!! it's goodwill! It's a mistake they need to refund me for. One call was an abberation. Multiple is them being NTL all over again (i.e. incompetent). I've asked them to disconnect the line if they can't inform me what their problem is...

Buzby wrote: »

Your line me be inadvertently teed with another, and it is this user who is billing your line. With nothing connected, how do you know they are not answering your calls?

Yes, possibly. Although the amount of calls is sparse, so it would be someone who wasn't using their line much. However that's VM's problem to sort out. They won't be answering my calls as I don't get calls because I don't use a landline.

Buzby wrote: »

In a similar situation, a call recorder that sits across the line, and records anything when it goes live will get to the bottom of it.

Erm, that's way too much hassle. Not my problem. Virgin will sort it out. I'm just warning that if it's happening to me, who else is it happening to? It would be unlikely that one person in the whole of the UK would have this issue.