topic Re: Call Barring in Home Phone

Call Barring

Staff — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 09:18:52 GMT

Can you help me with Plusnet Call Features, I have added Plusnet Call Protect and Call Barring to my home phone and it is shown as active on the control panel. I wish to bar calls from my phone to premium rate numbers so have dialed *347# but I get a message that “Use of network services is barred”.

I have dialed and spoken to the Plusnet help desk who told me that this service is not available on Plusnet only on BT. Any advise as am not sure who to call next.

Re: Call Barring

198kHz — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 14:09:45 GMT

According to PN's help page - https://www.plus.net/help/phone/call-features/

it is available, and *347# is the correct code.

It does say, though, that it takes 24 hours to start working after setting up.

Re: Call Barring

Staff — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 14:26:35 GMT

Request was made 2 days ago and I got an email to say it was active. However it is still not working. Can you help?

Re: Call Barring

198kHz — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 16:50:39 GMT

Sorry no, I'm a customer like yourself.

The helpful PN people do frequent the forums, so no doubt one will pick this up soon.

Re: Call Barring

BD — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 13:34:13 GMT

Hi @Staff, thanks for getting in touch and I'm sorry to hear you're having issues with your recently added call feature. I can see you've been in touch via another support channel and steps are in place to investigate this further. Let us know how it goes and if there's anyhting we can help you with moving forwards.

Re: Call Barring

MisterW — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:49:48 GMT

This has come up before https://community.plus.net/t5/Home-Phone/Call-barring-not-working/m-p/1695522

I'm not sure it was resolved then....

Re: Call Barring

Staff — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 11:40:59 GMT

Ben, Thank you for your input. Plusnet arranged for a BT service Engineer to call and test the line. The line was tested and found to be OK. The Engineer did cleaned the connection at the line inlet terminal but said that “* call features” faults are not a line fault and could only be corrected by Plusnet. He spoke to Plusnet and said it was up to Plusnet to rectify. So still not further forward.

Re: Call Barring

KatieC — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 11:19:41 GMT

Hi @Staff

Thank you for your reply, I am sorry to hear that the problem is still ongoing.

Please could you try the following instructions to use Call Barring;

How to bar all calls to the phone:

Barring - Dial * 261 #
Cancelling- Dial # 261 #
Check status - Dial * # 261 #

How to bar calls from your phone

Barring - Dial * 34 code #
Cancelling - Dial # 34 code * PIN #
Check status -Dial - * # 34 #

Codes
1 - Bar almost all calls including 1571 and Call minder – cancelling this option also cancels any other options you've barred.
2 - Bar national, international, and calls to mobiles
3 - Bar international calls
4 - Bar all operator calls, e.g. 118 numbers
5 - Bar calls to numbers with a * or # in them (includes some Calling Features, but allows you to cancel this option)
6 - Bar calls to Premium Rate numbers.

Please could you try the below instructions for using Plusnet Call Protect;

In order to access the main menu, dial 1572. The following options are available:

Listen to junk voicemails - Any voicemail left by a blocked number will be sent to junk voicemail. Up to 20 messages can be stored at one time. If a further message is left, the oldest will be deleted
Call Protect blacklist - A list of nuisance callers has been compiled and any calls from these numbers will automatically be sent to the customer's junk voicemail. This blacklist is automatically activated when the customer takes Plusnet Call Protect, but it can be turned off if desired
Manage personal blacklist - In addition to the predefined Call Protect blacklist, the customer can add up to 100 numbers to a personal blacklist. To block the last number that called, from within the main menu, press 1, then follow the instructions
Block categories - The following categories of numbers can be blocked: international numbers, withheld numbers and/or unrecognised numbers

The full options are:

Press 1 to add the last answered call to your diverted caller list
Press 2 to remove the last entry from the diverted caller list
Press 3 to listen to 1572 messages
Press 4 to change the personal options including:
- Plusnet's diverted list
- Your diverted list
- VIP list
- DND setting

Please do let us know if the problem persists after following the instructions above.

Re: Call Barring

198kHz — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 11:58:43 GMT

@KatieC

Now that's interesting - what is your source for the call barring info?

It shows Premium barring as *346#, but the Plusnet guide says *347#.

Looks like you've found the solution.

Re: Call Barring

Staff — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 12:24:00 GMT

Thank you for your response. I can bar and cancel all the barring codes apart from Code 6. All I get when I dial *346# is the message “The number you have dialled has not been recognised.” The Call Protect is also working.

Can you explain why the call barring to Premium Rate numbers does not work?

Re: Call Barring

198kHz — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:29:10 GMT

@Staff wrote:

Can you explain why the call barring to Premium Rate numbers does not work?

As a customer, I'm afraid I can't.

Hopefully @KatieC can, and also explain -

Why does her source say the code is *346#, when the Plusnet guide says *347# for premium barring?

Why does neither code work.

Re: Call Barring

Staff — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 10:14:20 GMT

Question - has anybody using Plusnet for their home phone ever been able to get the call feature that blocks calls to premium rate numbers to work? So far Plusnet customer services have given me three different answers as to how to get it to work.

Service is not available on Plusnet only on BT.
I should dial *347#.
I should dial *346# .

I have also been told that it’s a line fault only for BT to test my line and tell me the fault is with Plusnet. Do Plusnet have anyone who understands their phone network service or is it true that the service is not available from Plusnet?

Re: Call Barring

Staff — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 15:45:27 GMT

Finally contacted by a Service Engineer at Plusnet who understands the system. The answer as to how to get call barring for premium rate numbers is that the Plusnet System can only support barring premium rate numbers when call protect is not active. So you can only have either call protect or premium rate block selected. The system does not allow both to be active. Plusnet needs to make this clear on the Plusnet web.

Re: Call Barring

198kHz — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 19:33:42 GMT

Well, who'd athunk it? 😮

Thanks for posting back with that info. I can't figure out why Call Protect (incoming) should affect Call Barring (outgoing).

Perhaps there's a technical fault in the system somewhere. If there isn't, and it's definitely the way it has to work, then the instructions for Protect and Barring should make this clear.

Any thoughts @KatieC @BD ?