I appear to be sleep dialling!

[#1]

I lead a leisurely life. Yesterday morning I got up as normal at about 9:30. I've just been looking at my phone calls and apparently I dialled 123 at 07:29. I've got a bedside clock that projects the time onto the bedroom ceiling so if I want to know what the time is, I open my eyes and there it is in plain view. I don't have to get out of bed and go to the phone and make a telephone call.

I did not make the call. It seems that I'm not the only one, it appears to be a common spurious charge as reported by WHICH where it's reported to be happening to BT, Plusnet, Talk Talk and Sky subscribers.

Do others check their bills regularly and has it happened to anyone else?

[#2]

Simply unplug your phone when you go to bed and plug it back in when you get up or like I do only plug it in when you want to make a call the unplug it when you finish.

[#3]

"Simply unplug your phone when you go to bed"

The call was not made so it would not have made any difference but in any case what if I need to use it during the night or someone needs to contact me. At my age I need to be sure that I have a working lifeline to the outside world.

[#4]

This happened to me a few months back.

I was definitely at home at the time the call was made but it certainly wasn't me as I have no need for the speaking clock and only now know the number because it appeared on my bill!

Fortunately it appears to be a one-off occurrence as it hasn't happened again.

[#5]

"Fortunately it appears to be a one-off occurrence"

Yeh probably will be for me too but looking into a bit further, it seems to be a 'one-off' for an awful lot of people, so a nice little income top-up presumably for BT and to a lesser extent for PlusNet who appear to charge a premium of around 10p on each one. I would mind a few thousand 10p's a month for doing squat.....

[#6]

A mobile at the side of the bed and telling people to contact you on the mobile between certain hours plus you don't have to get up in the night to call out in an emergency!

[#7]

I do have my mobile there as well. My base station is in my loft (home office) and I don't get up there very often due to my back/leg problems.

I've tried to get on to support chat a couple of times but the agent is busy, perhaps he could do with a bit of help

It's a matter of principle for me. I don't like the idea of paying for something I've not had (how much is completely irrelevant to me).

[#8]

Spent a couple of days trying to get through at various times and finally managed to get though on chat this morning. BT Raw data shows that the call was made whereas I say it wasn't. I can only suppose that there was an engineer working on my local cab and he chose my line to make a test call on!

I wish I wasn't so stubborn. I can see I'm going to waste far too much time chasing 50p that in truth I don't really care about anyway

[#9]

Have you got the crime reference number from when you reported this fraud to the police?

[#10]

It's not a fraud. There's no criminal intent and it would not fall within the meaning of the Theft Act or any amendment to it.  Plusnet have got the raw BT data showing a 1 second call from my line at 7:29 a.m. when I was asleep.

I'm not sure whether you are being facetious but I'm in earnest and I object to paying for something that I have not had whereas I pay all my bills on the day I get them and owe no man a penny.

Google tells me that there are thousands of similar complaints going back a long time. There is speculation that engineers make the call to test a line and although BT deny that this happens - it does. It has been widely reported in various nespapers, user forums, and Which to name but a few.

[#11]

It's not a fraud. There's no criminal intent

Not by PlusNet, no, but I think Jelv is probably referring to a possible fraud by BT for charging you for a call you didn't make or one of it's Engineers for unlawfully using your telephone to incur charges.

[#12]

"a possible fraud by BT"

That too is an absolute non starter. BT are Plusnet suppliers not mine and in any case this is not a Criminal matter. Ultimately it is a regulatory question but that is dependant on just how much evidence I can accrue. It may well still be unresolved when I shake off the mortal wotsit in which case I'll pursue it from the other side

[#13]

I should just say, as I have done in other forums where I'm recording my experience that apart from the abysmal wait times you sometimes have to endure, I'm not generally unhappy with Plusnet. The agent I got through to this morning was, as they always are, helpful and pleasant to deal with. He was very clearly aware of the ongoing problem with these calls as evidenced by the initial question he asked, "Have you had an engineer working on your line?"

Shouldn't there be some recognition that people don't make 1 second phone calls to anybody and certainly not to the 'speaking clock'. Is it the case that the Plusnet position is one of "Yes we know what you say is true. We know you didn't make the call but we are going to charge you anyway".

[#14]

My ticket  - #133679737 refers.

The contributor on the Which forum whose post is immediately before mine gives an interesting historical reason for engineers using 123 to test lines. It goes back to the days when there was only BT and calls to 123 were free and not recorded on telephone bills. It seems old habits die hard.

[#15]

If I tapped in to your line and then made long international calls at your expense I suspect you'd have no doubt that a crime had been committed.

Just because it's only a matter of pence doesn't change the basic facts.