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Calls made from my landline (EE)
bobobski
Posts: 771 Forumite
in Phones & TV
I don't know whether this is a known issue as a quick look on the internet doesn't come up with any hits.
For the last couple of months I've had calls made from my landline number (I'm with EE) but I didn't make the calls. I only have a landline (a) because for some unknown reason you need to pay line rental even with fibre optic internet and (b) so my 89 year old grandmother can call me. I never use my landline to make calls - why would I when my mobile contract has inclusive calls? And besides, almost all of the calls were made while I was at work. But for a couple of months I've had calls to local landlines, Slovakian mobiles, random Scottish numbers and insurance companies (these are a selection I bothered to Google) logged on my bill.
EE have been awful at dealing with it - they insist that I must have made the calls. I live alone; I barely have friends around; I never have maintenance people around unless I'm in the house; I've lived here for more than 3 years (with EE for most of that) and this has only recently become an issue. EE have also confirmed that they haven't accidentally assigned my number to another person. EE have placed a bar on incoming and outgoing calls from my line, which may or may not prevent this happening again (since we don't know what's caused it), but now I'm paying for a service that I cannot use. They won't let me get out of my contract early unless I pay £78.
Has anyone else had this issue? Is this a known scam?
For the last couple of months I've had calls made from my landline number (I'm with EE) but I didn't make the calls. I only have a landline (a) because for some unknown reason you need to pay line rental even with fibre optic internet and (b) so my 89 year old grandmother can call me. I never use my landline to make calls - why would I when my mobile contract has inclusive calls? And besides, almost all of the calls were made while I was at work. But for a couple of months I've had calls to local landlines, Slovakian mobiles, random Scottish numbers and insurance companies (these are a selection I bothered to Google) logged on my bill.
EE have been awful at dealing with it - they insist that I must have made the calls. I live alone; I barely have friends around; I never have maintenance people around unless I'm in the house; I've lived here for more than 3 years (with EE for most of that) and this has only recently become an issue. EE have also confirmed that they haven't accidentally assigned my number to another person. EE have placed a bar on incoming and outgoing calls from my line, which may or may not prevent this happening again (since we don't know what's caused it), but now I'm paying for a service that I cannot use. They won't let me get out of my contract early unless I pay £78.
Has anyone else had this issue? Is this a known scam?
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Comments
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What service can you not use ???
The pay line rental is for a data line to transmit your broadband on .0 -
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What sort of property do you line in ?, it's not unheard of, in apartment complexes, where all the lines enter in a common area ( like a utility room,) before they are distributed to the individual apartment , for an unscrupulous person to connect a phone to your line and make calls that would appear on your bill, this type of fraud can happen in other places in the network but not so easily.
The other thing to check is that the line in your property is actually your number, if you never make calls it could be that your line has been crossed with someone else's line, plug a phone is and dial 17070, it should report the line number , check its your number
What type of fibre service do you have ?, if it's FTTC , then you do need a line back to the exchange for telephony, if it's FTTP then the fraud I described it not going to be the cause of your problem, but I doubt you are FTTP0 -
EE dont sell FTTP as far as I know so its almost certainly FTTC and so does require a landline.0
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You could try calling your landline number from another line at various times of the day and night to see if someone else answers. This might show if your line is crossed with someone else's. Of course, if calls have now been blocked, you will be unable to try this.0
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What sort of property do you line in ?, it's not unheard of, in apartment complexes, where all the lines enter in a common area ( like a utility room,) before they are distributed to the individual apartment , for an unscrupulous person to connect a phone to your line and make calls that would appear on your bill, this type of fraud can happen in other places in the network but not so easily.
The other thing to check is that the line in your property is actually your number, if you never make calls it could be that your line has been crossed with someone else's line, plug a phone is and dial 17070, it should report the line number , check its your number
What type of fibre service do you have ?, if it's FTTC , then you do need a line back to the exchange for telephony, if it's FTTP then the fraud I described it not going to be the cause of your problem, but I doubt you are FTTP
I live in a flat but it's purpose built with no communal areas. My upstairs neighbours even have a separate entrance into the building.
I never make calls but I do receive them from my grandparents on the phone so the number is definitely mine. I tried dialing 17070 but nothing happened, presumably because the call bar is now active.
How do I find out if I have FTTP? I've not heard of any provider offering broadband with no phone line except Virgin (who are now available where I live) so regardless of whether I have FTTP or not the point still stands that line rental is a bit of a scam, even if it's not in my particular situation. Still, I'd be curious to know how I find out?EE dont sell FTTP as far as I know so its almost certainly FTTC and so does require a landline.
As above.You could try calling your landline number from another line at various times of the day and night to see if someone else answers. This might show if your line is crossed with someone else's. Of course, if calls have now been blocked, you will be unable to try this.
Just tried this and someone else did pick up despite the call bar on my number being active. They confirmed that they set up their account within the last couple of months which fits the timing of when I started being charged for someone else's calls. They are with BT and I'm with EE. I'm still shocked though because the guy at EE I spoke to a few calls ago confirmed my number definitely hadn't been assigned to anyone else.
On the phone again with EE now and trying not to get angry... The lady I spoke to yesterday was insistent that it must have been my fault when it was actually BT's all along! The insistence that the fault was definitely mine was quite shocking with all the evidence to the contrary.
Anyway, thank you for this suggestion - not sure this would have got resolved without it as evidently I still would have been getting charges on my bill even with the call bar. I stupidly believed the guy at EE who said my name was definitely the only one associated with my number so my best guess was that someone was tapping into my line, so wouldn't have thought of calling the number.0 -
I live in a flat but it's purpose built with no communal areas. My upstairs neighbours even have a separate entrance into the building.
I never make calls but I do receive them from my grandparents on the phone so the number is definitely mine. I tried dialing 17070 but nothing happened, presumably because the call bar is now active.
How do I find out if I have FTTP? I've not heard of any provider offering broadband with no phone line except Virgin (who are now available where I live) so regardless of whether I have FTTP or not the point still stands that line rental is a bit of a scam, even if it's not in my particular situation. Still, I'd be curious to know how I find out?
Put your details into Sam Knows
You keep saying line rental is a scam, but as already explained, ADSL and VDSL (FTTC) both need a landline to work. They are services that run over a landline.0 -
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