Unauthorised calls on bill

[#1]

Hello. I'm trying to get some support for my mother in law. She has a plusnet line just for broadband, there is no phone plugged into the line. However, on her most recent bill there are £12 of international call charges. On calling customer care she has been basically been told 'tough' pay up, or she can pay £65 from her own pocket for plusnet to investigate their own mistake. As a pensioner she is now frightened as she doesn't know if this will keep happening and is too scared not to pay, so basically Plusnet can help themselves to her bank account and pension money! I've tried to call but the wait times are consistently 30 mins plus. Any other experience of this? I can only assume the line has been hacked or that there is a crossed line somewhere?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE. Managed to get through, and after some negotiation got the charges removed.

[#3]

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@NickA wrote:
She has a plusnet line just for broadband, there is no phone plugged into the line. However, on her most recent bill there are £12 of international call charges. On calling customer care she has been basically been told 'tough' pay up, or she can pay £65 from her own pocket for plusnet to investigate...

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In so many similar cases seen on the forum, this would appear to be Plusnet's default first response.

Is it really official policy, or are agents just not trained to deal with such cases?

[#4]

Hi there.

Thanks for getting in touch, I'm sorry to see you've had difficulties in investigating call charges your mother in law is seeing on her bill that she doesn't recognise.

Could you possibly PM me their account username as I'd like to review and investigate this further.

[#5]

@NickA 

A warm welcome to the forums.

Whilst at this juncture you might feel that the immediate problem is resolved, may I implore you to follow-up on @Gandalf 's request.

On the premise that your mum did not dial these calls on her line, it remains evident that someone did.  If they did before, they could do so again and the cause does need on the ground investigation.  What is usually found is that one subscriber's line has come into contact with another line (called a crossed line) and calls made by one subscriber are actually routed over a different subscriber's line / account.

The £65 charge mentioned is the standard "if no fault is found" call out fee, which Plusnet always has a choice over applying.  Unfortunately until this principle is accepted there are no boots placed on the ground.

There are though some tests you can do yourself...

1. With a handset plugged into the line ring 17070 and check that the service ID (the phone number) is correct
2. Choose option 2 - make sure the line is quiet - a noisy line could indicate bad connections and impact broadband performance
3. Make a call to a mobile phone (do not answer it) and verify that the correct number is displayed
4. Ring the land line from a mobile, check that the phone hand set rings - if it does not, keep ringing until someone answers and explain the situation - as likely as not, that's the party who made the calls

Whatever you do, please do not do nothing!