New Plusnet customer being charged for calls I didn't make!

[#1]

Well, I plugged the phone in again and rang that number - which read back as my landline. It read back as my landline when I first tried it, which I expect was on 10th June when I replied to Plusnet to say I hadn't made the calls, an email which bounced and then I had to ring them.

I tried to ring my mobile from my landline just now but it goes to direct me to the Plusnet payment line, and looking at my emails I guess it has been cut off since the 9th June, when I was emailed that I had 6p left of my credit limit. The calls I'm being billed for stopped on that date too, though the cost has way exceeded the 'credit limit'

Could the line have been crossed and then mended on 9th June....? So the bills went to me 2-9th but when I tried the special number it had changed back to me by the 10th? I don't know if the phone line was working or not after the transfer on 30th May, I didn't plug the line in to check.

I'm so completely puzzled - I'd also be scared if I didn't know for sure that no-one could have got into my house somehow to make those calls, due to the times of them - 8am weekdays the house is proper busy with me and the kids getting ready for school and someone would have noticed a random stranger dialling Holland for nearly an hour at the bottom of the stairs.

The fact that the Holland calls were just under an hour would also suggest that the person who made them had an international calls inclusive package, as they need to keep them under 1hr each time, by my research. I mean - who would ever just call international without making some arrangement - like one of those cheap pre dial numbers that were popular a few years back or by having something inclusive... especially me when I have to budget so carefully and cheaper broadband cost was the reason for my switch to Plusnet :o(

[#2]

Those are good questions. Let me add some more for consideration.

1. Is it the case that because you do not use the phone line you do not have a phone hand set plugged into the line?

If the answer is "Yes" you would have no awareness of there being inbound calls to the line. So now a question to plusnet.

Is there any possibility that some other phone user had a crossed line to this user's line?
That they realised they were not receiving their inbound calls?
That they discovered they could not make out bound calls due to the charge cap?
That they realised their phone line was wrongly corrected?
That their CP sorted this out with BTOR before PN requested BTOR to investigate?
Is one CP (such as PN) able to ask BTOR to examine their area engineering records to see if this scenario holds water?

[#3]

That would make sense - thank you for your input, I'm really grateful.

Perhaps the cap even cut off one of the calls the other person was making?

I either have the landline unplugged with the ringer switch to off or plugged in with the ringer off - its just in case of an emergency I'd like the kids to ring from the landline in case they can't remember our address....  As I'd been fiddling with the splitter thingy when I changed to the new router I might have had it plugged in but I never have the ringer on. So yes, I wouldn't have noticed calls coming in to my landline and they wouldn't have been answered.

I switched the phone ringer on this morning to check I can ring my number (which I can) and within 3 hours I'd had a call about a local recycling scheme etc etc which is the whole reason I abandoned my landline, because unwanted calls were ringing me to go answer the landline several times a day, causing me pain and BT couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it.

I thought about a blocker or some such gadget, but actually its easier to have my parents and Grannie ring me on my mobile and I'll call them back.

Meh - I think I need to raise a formal complaint so I can go to OFCOM

[#4]

Caroline,

In addition to my public contribution here, I've also used the Superuser escalation channels to ask if the is a possibility of the circumstances being reviewed. There are no promises though.

I think that sadly your experience has highlighted the possibility of unexpected things going wrong if one does not have a telephone handset plugged into the phone line. There's been a recent case around here of a user having their line crossed over with a pharmacy after BTOR work ... I cannot begin to imagine how big their bill might have become if they had not noticed the problem.

[#5]

Hi there,

I'm sincerely sorry to hear this ordeal is still ongoing and causing you distress and I want to get this resolved for you. If you could drop me a private message when you've available to talk with a number to call and hopefully we can clear this up for you.

Kind regards,

Ben

[#6]

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@Gandalf wrote:

Sorry about the lack of response on the ticket.

I've given our billing team a nudge and they've investigated this again for you.

Unfortunately due to the reasons explained in their response, the call charges would be applicable.

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Even without further investigation, it must surely be obvious to anyone that the customer is not responsible for these calls.

Hopefully common sense and logic will prevail, and PN will at least put the charges 'on hold' until a resolution is found.

Thanks for stepping in @BD

[#7]

Hi there,

Upon checking your account for a number to try and get hold of you I can see a colleague has been in touch and resolved this for you.
Let us know if you need anything else moving forward.

Kind regards,

Ben

[#8]

Huge thank you for your support on this forum - you non-Plusnet folk really know your stuff! 

I do think, like you say, that what happened was that there was a crossed line from switch-over till 9th June and it got fixed before I had been told about the massive bill that had been run up - which gives me hope it won't happen again 🐵

I got a call yesterday from the Senior Team (or something like it) from Plus Net who decided to write off the calls and extra penalty charges, even though they really seem to have come from my line, from their point of view. He was very nice and understood how scary this whole thing had been for me - and stressful....

I did send in my past 17 monthly mostly £0 calls bills which I hope showed I wasn't some kind of scammer.

I've asked to have the line blocked to £5 call limit which is better than a possible £55 and they're keeping an eye on the calls for the next week or two.

A great result (though the curious me would really like to know who made those calls, whether they were local off my green cabinet nearby or just some random occurrence and how it happened!)

Fingers crossed no more weird stuff happens to my phone-line!

Thank you again - a felt really alone and unbelieved before you forum heroes pitched in xxx

[#9]

I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing to know more details about how and exactly where the problem occurred - it may help others in the future.

Anyway very pleased for you Caroline - a good result in the end.  

Thanks to all who helped along the way.

[#10]

Without someone spending time (and money) to enquire of BTOR of engineering activity in the 'area' around that time we are never going to known for sure. If no more calls are being lodged to the account then clearly something has changed somewhere.

The possibility that this is associated with the install engineering activity and that the problem could have been fixed by activity instigated by another party, cannot be ruled out beyond reasonable doubt. It is deeply worrying that a simple wiring fault can have such dire financial impact on an unsuspecting user. In the given circumstances it's excellent to known that an amicable resolution has been reached.

[#11]

I'm happy to hear that this has been resolved.

Apologies for the stress that it caused.

[#12]

UPDATE:

Over the Summer, I found out what had happened to my phone line.....

On the 28 May a local lady reported a fault on her line, she couldn't make outgoing calls. When they tried to fix it they connected her line to mine for outgoing calls. She didn't realise until she lost her home phone handset and decided to ring it from her mobile - it connected her to the caretaker at the school. So her incoming calls went there!

She also got a call on 8th June from the vets asking for me by name, which alerted her to whose number she had. She then sent me a message on Facebook on 9th June which sadly for me I didn't see - it was in message requests from folk I don't know and I didn't see that until I was on holiday in August.

So my number was going through to hers, when she rang her number it went through to the local school. Some 3 way misconnection..... The school had closed down and their number was meant to have been disconnected 10 days before, but it was still live.

The local lady asked her supplier SSE who would have paid for her calls (to Holland, mobiles, SSE etc ) and they said they don't know. And left it at that.

It took the engineer hours to sort it out at the box apparently. All this happened before I knew I was in deep trouble with 'my' phone bill.....

I am very glad that eventually after weeks of stress and having my phone cut off and the hours of time it took to sort it out, that Plusnet finally believed me.

BUT

I would like to raise this with Ofcom, because there should be a reporting system for line crosses like this, so that all parties involved are aware of it and that innocent people aren't sent bills for such large sums so they get frightened to death.

I also think I should get some compensation for it all....

What do you all think.....

[#13]

Hi @JonoH

You were deeply involved in helping to resolve this issue, which has turned out to be much as I feared could be the case, crossed line billing arising from poor termination engineering.

From this experience is there anything which Plusnet can do to address such situations differently?  The big issue with situations such as this are...

• The user does not know there is a problem until they get an unexpected bill (I do not see how that can be addressed)
• The user is then faced with a massive challenge to refute the charges because "BT tell us those calls were made on your line, so you or someone in your household MUST have made them"
• Fault testing cannot identify that the line being tested terminates elsewhere
• There appears to be no means within BTOR to enquire if there has been any recent engineering work in the 'vicinity' of the customer's line ... we all recall the days of Kelly Communications engineers stealing lines to "fix" problems
• If users do not have a hand set, they cannot conduct and tests
• There dos not appear to be a defined procedure for confirming circuit termination

On the last point @carolinefish's cross connected SSE customer's approach seems to have been informative...

• Ring your own number from a mobile ... see where it goes
• Note any strange calls received ... ask who was being called
• Use 17070 to check the circuit ID (phone no)

As I noted above in this thread - I have experienced cross line connection and it took a lot of sorting out - and dealing with the consequential billing issues ... all before I move the phone to PN.

Further it does not seem appropriate that a CP reseller should have to bare the cost burden of refunding the cost of incorrect wholesale billing arising from BTOR's engineering mistakes.  I trust that there is a route for Plusnet to remedy such losses arising for supplier failure?

[#14]

..as an aside, given how badly the d-sides seem to have been messed up, it is surprising that broadband still seemed to function without (a reported) issue! 

[#15]

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@Townman wrote:

..as an aside, given how badly the d-sides seem to have been messed up, it is surprising that broadband still seemed to function without (a reported) issue! 

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Not really, it points to the line cross connection being at or near the exchange, rather than between the Fibre Cabinet termination and the line to the EU !