Private phone call? (Virgin Media)

pinkshoes

We have Virgin Media phone line, broad band and cable TV.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to answer the phone, and when I said "hello?", someone else said "hello?". But it wasn't the other person who called me who said hello, it was another person who the call was intended for. They appeared to have dialled two numbers at once! Very odd.

Then last week, it happened again. This time the phone rang, and when I answered, two people were already mid conversation, something about renewing their pools, and they were about to read out the long number on their credit card!!

Then THREE times now I've had a phone call from this lady asking for her daughter, but very confused why she's got me. The number she dialled is on speed dial, and is in a city 20 miles from me, but for some reason it comes through to my phone.

!!!!!!?!?! Is this just something daft going on with Virgin phone lines??

The woman reading her credit card number out worried me the most, so will no longer be making any secure phone calls from my landline!

fluffnutter

Crossed lines innit. I thought these had died out in the 80s. Exciting!

Shelldean

we had an issue a few yrs back with virgin.
But in our case they had given our number to a new customer.
New customer went round giving our her new number to everyone.
We didn't know this at this point. But our landline went dead.
So we reported the fault, and it was repaired.
When then got a few odd calls, weirdly enough asking for Shell ( my name) I had no idea what they was on about etc etc.
Then the line develops another fault, once again reported and fixed.
I don't know how many times this happened but it was a few.

I then got in a conversation with one caller, who was calling to offer bereavement services ( we'd just lost f-I-l) and tbh I thought someone was pranking us in a very unkind way.
Anyway after a bit of a conversation with this lovely lady who was coming from Manchester for this counselling we realised what had happened.

Calls to virgin took a bit of explaining but we finally got it sorted.

Only for the other Shell, the new customer to call me up and ask just how long I had this number and was I certain I'd been issued it first??? Cheeky bint!!!! She was told in NO uncertain terms it WAS my number as I'd had it since 1994 (previous address) and it had moved to my current address with me in 1997. So yes I was certain it was mine. She replied with a very small oh!!! LOL

Turns out she lives very near me and we shared a box, lazy engineer when he created her account it would seem.

But that wouldn't explain how the mother trying to get her daughter on speed dial gets you does it?

Does the daughter live near you? maybe some wires are crossed in a local box somewhere?

pinkshoes

Don't know where this woman lived, but the daughter lived 20 miles from me, in a City which has a different area code, and her number was nothing like mine.

I'm quite sure it wasn't a new number, as the woman said it had been on speed dial for ages and had always worked up until now!

Very odd!

Shelldean

so maybe the woman lived near you and her line was going via the same box as yours?
Maybe an engineer has visited the box and knocked some wires and this is causing the crossed lines?

can only suggest calling Virgin I guess?

ap1986

A friend of mine had this happen to her, I don't know which provider she was with though.

She heard some very questionable and incriminating conversations (all to do with bedroom activities:eek:) and loved telling us all about them until she realised that her calls might be being heard too (took her a while to work it out ) and she called the provider and got it sorted. I think it was a 'crossed lines' problem.

Sorry I can't offer any advice though

vuvuzela

Similar happened to me around 14 or so years ago when I was on Virgin. Got an account set up with their cable service, was fine for a year, then they gave someone else the same phone number as me and it rang simultaneously on both lines if anyone called. They were in the same city as I was. I kept the number, as I had it first, but it was a struggle to get them to understand what had happened.

Yorkie1

vuvuzela wrote: »

Similar happened to me around 14 or so years ago when I was on Virgin. Got an account set up with their cable service, was fine for a year, then they gave someone else the same phone number as me and it rang simultaneously on both lines if anyone called. They were in the same city as I was. I kept the number, as I had it first, but it was a struggle to get them to understand what had happened.

I wonder what happens if this dual-allocation happens and you ring your own number? Does the other person answer?

Sayaka

I had a reallocated phone number from Virgin Media when I first moved into my house 12 years ago. I kept getting messages on my answerphone for the previous owner, including on one occasion an invite to audition for a kids' show on Nickelodeon (requirements were to "sing, dance and be funny")

However, I did also have a debt collection agency ring up who I couldn't get to understand about the number reallocation and kept insisting I told them my "current" address. They stopped after a while though.

oxfordrocks

We had a similar type of problem several years ago.

Turned out that the Virgin cabinet in the street had been vandalised and one of the wires in the cabinet was touching another wire -thus leading to crossed lines.