phone charges

[#1]

Hi robbo6457,
I've had a look into your call charges and it seems like this is not happening every day that you call your daughter so we can only conclude that the calls that have been charged were connecting and you are therefore being charged for the first minute. There is also a call that lasted 3 minutes and 2 calls that lasted 2 minutes - all the other calls are 1 minute or under. If you have a look at your itemised bill it will show you the dates and times when the calls were made. Please bear in mind that even if the call goes to Voicemail it will count as the call "connecting" and it may be chargeable.

[#2]

Good morning promod, just thought there may be a last reply before closure and there you were..  Thank you for the info from Money saving, I have 'bookmarked 'the site and will go thru' it  any little tip is worth knowing ........ Many thanks to you  ( I see there is another 'reply ??)  Hope you don't mind my using your 'space' ??
Hello Linn K,
                      yes, I am well aware of the actual calls to my daughter, and the applied payment costs for same. It seems you are actually repeating what has already been said in 'concluding ' that I have also been charged for the 'three rings ' I actually made for the first minute !  The issue in question, which you have already outlined was " why should any charge be made for ring tones ?? and no actual connection ?  you point being that by just ringing I would be connected and therefore charged.      . have already stated that I will NOT be using this 'method' again ,  at least not with the Plusnet system

[#3]

Hi robbo6457,
Sorry if my previous post wasn't very clear - if you've been charged this would indicate that the call has "connected" in some way or another. Can you confirm if your daughter's mobile phone showed a missed call on the days that you were charged for 1 minute?

[#4]

Hello again Linn,
                          thanks for the continued interest.  Unfortunately at the moment, I am unable to furnish the details you mention, from my daughter. However just to clarify things, just as soon as I can; I will let you know    Thanks again

[#5]

Robbo6457, this is just an idea – I don't know how well it'd work in practice – but I wonder if carrying out the following test might prove interesting:

• Find something in your house that keeps accurate time without adjustment (e.g. a radio-controlled clock, or a computer) and which displays the time including seconds (we can help show you how to get that on your computer if you need it);


• Sit next to the timepiece above, with a pen, paper and your landline phone;


• Instruct your daughter to not answer her phone (perhaps by ringing her in advance to tell her you're carrying out a test);


• Dial your daughter's mobile from your landline, and when you start hearing ringing, take a note of the time including seconds e.g. 13:19:35;


• Eventually your call will be transferred to your daughter's voicemail. At the moment you hear that happen, take a note of the time again, e.g. 13:19:55;


• Wait a day;


• Log in to your Plusnet telephone control panel, click on the Recent Calls tab, and see which of the two times you wrote down is the closest to the time for the call shown online.

Like I say, I don't know for certain if that'll work (e.g. the times shown online could be inaccurate for some reason of which I am unaware), but it might be worth a try. I am assuming that the time given online should be the time at which the call connects (because that's when it should start to be chargeable), so if the time shown is actually the time the phone started ringing, there's a problem.

[#6]

Hello Be3G,
                    Thanks for the interest and for the suggestion..  Since my last 'letter' from Linn of Plusnet I have checked back on my phone account with Plusnet, and there appears to be a few 'time' discrepancies along the lines you suggest  eg: 16-05-2014. 0900 :56  1 min  26p..  16-05-2014.. 0901:00 1min  26p.. again,
13-04-2014. 0859:03  1min  26p.. 13-04-2014  0859:56  1min  26p...? there are a few more instances, but as you see , there is something very wrong , especially since I am being charged for each . ! ( note the actual times  and dates duplication ?)..)    Yes, I have a radio controlled clock, but I must confess, I am a bit loathe to give them the chance to take more money from me..    Without 'timing' , I just let the phone ring three times precisely, and dissconect..    All in all Be3G, I have just not bothered to go thr'u the practice again.  There just will not be anymore  'ringing ' from my landline to her mobile again . Rip off, comes to mind..?
                            Thanks again Be3G .....best wishes

[#7]

Hi robbo6457,
I've asked a member of our Networks team to have a look into this and they can confirm that the call on 16/05/2014 that started at 09:00:14 lasted 12 seconds so you were charged for 1 minute as it's rounded up by the minute. The next call was then made at 09:01:00 and lasted 68 seconds so you were therefore charged for 2 minutes.
To clarify: If you make 5 calls within 1 minute that all connect and the duration is under 1 minute you would be charged for 5 minutes.
The information is correct and showing that the call connected and how long for. It may be because your daughter's mobile was turned off or it could've gone to Voicemail.

[#8]

Quote from: robbo6457

...  at least not with the Plusnet system

Quote from: robbo6457

Rip off, comes to mind..?

For fairness and clarification, it is not the PlusNet system which is causing you to be charged.  It is the BTOR phone network which receives the call answered status which initiates billing.  The billing details are then passed onto PN for onward charging to the subscriber.  As per one of the links I gave above, it is either the target mobile network operator or an intermediate network operator which is falsely generating the call answered status.
Just a passing thought, has your daughter's mobile number been ported from one mobile provider to another or on diversion (call forwarding) to another number?  I wonder if this condition is arising from calls being routed across provider networks based on the "STD" code to the original number owner and then at the point of redirection to the new number owner, the call answered status is being generated.
There ought somewhere in the industry be a means of investigating what is happening here, rather than just relying on the billing operator simply having to accept whatever "comes over the wall" from BTOR's call management systems.

[#9]

The issue actually stems from the company running robbo6457's daughter's mobile network (not sure we've been told which it is?). They're the ones that determine whether or not the call was answered and send details back up the chain to BTOR and then us (with various intermediary steps). As such, neither BTOR nor Plusnet can determine whether or not the call was answered from the details given, we are told that it was answered and hence charge as such.
I've heard plenty of anecdotal reports of this happening but I've never been given enough information to be able to chase it down (the specifics of our contract with BTWS, from whom we buy calls, does not help either). A colleague is taking over my responsibilities for the call rating platform so I will point him in the direction of this thread and ask him to pick up investigation from here.

[#10]

Quote from: robbo6457

my daughter tells me she has a Nokia phone and a contract with Tesco !!

So potentially a Tesco issue or one with the O2 network (although my stepson is on GiffGaff and we don't get charged for unanswered calls to him)

[#11]

Quote from: DomS

So potentially a Tesco issue or one with the O2 network

And, if a number has been ported from another network then you have another possible source for the issue (add yet another if the number was ported from a different virtual network).

[#12]

I don't /think/ it's a number porting issue but I'm not sure whether the root cause will sit with the MVNO (Tesco) or the MNO (O2) as I don't know which would determine that the call 'was answered'.

[#13]

Ok - some info from my end :
Mobile 1 - same number with Virgin since 1999 - never been ported = No connection charge for unanswered calls.
Mobile 2 - with Orange / EE since beginning of this year - never been ported = No connection charge for unanswered calls.
Mobile 3 - with GiggGaff for a year - never been ported = No connection charge for unanswered calls.

[#14]

I would also suggest (if possible) that if a customer has this issue and can replicate it on demand that you look at it as an opportunity to "debug" the issue and prove to Tesco / O2 or whoever that their systems are incorrectly charging BT / Plusnet customers.
Potentially if the original poster gave his daughters number to a member of the DCT (with her permission), they called the number themselves, verified there was no answer then were charged, would that be enough proof to push it further with the suppliers ?

[#15]

I think our existing data would be sufficient to push back to the mobile operator as long as we can get some definitive info from the OP about which calls are charged but not answered to ensure we're sending the right info across.