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PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

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Leapy
Seasoned Champion
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PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

I just checked my PN phone bill and it has one call on it! Sad  (normally it has none) Smiley

The call is a phantom call to 123  as when it was made, we were not at home.

The charge is 50p and the duration is 1 second.

That is £30 per minute.

Which is £1,800 per hour.   

 

 

34 REPLIES 34
Mav
Moderator
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

Moderator's note(s):

Moved from Home Phone to My Account/Billing.

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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear - Mark Twain
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Optimatts
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

Hi there @Leapy,

123 is the speaking clock number.

It's not something people tend to use these days since everyone has plenty of devices which sync to the internet with the exact time though it still exists for those that want to know the exact GMT time.

 

However there's a lot of devices and services which connect via the phone line that use a call to 123 to test the line. Things like home alarm systems and careline pendants use it to test the line to ensure they can call emergency services when needed.

 

I've also known some TV digiboxes (my parents old sky box for example) connect via the phone line and occasionally do line tests via 123. 

 

Have you got any of these devices connected which may have done this?

 

 

Townman
Superuser
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Leapy 

You've missed your vocation here - there's nothing quite like a misleading sound bite to grab attention - I think its call click bait in the industry!

Calls to TIM (timeline) are a fixed fee of 50p and are not time duration charged.  So if the call had lasted an hour, it would still only have cost 50p not £1800 as you seek to suggest.

See - https://www.plus.net/help/legal/service-number-call-rates/#fixed-fee-charge-calls - for clear detail on the charging rate.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

RealAleMadrid
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Optimatts  I always though it was OR telephone engineers or their sub-contractors who do this for fun, possibly when testing lines. They don't care if a customer gets charged for a call they didn't make.

I do not think there are devices in the home that use 123 as a line test number, do you have any real evidence of this?

Optimatts
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Registered: ‎25-09-2018

Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

Thanks for the input @Townman, I must admit I forgot to add that the call charges are indeed capped.

 

@RealAleMadrid while I have seen OR engineers use the 123 service to test the line, it's unusual that it happens when a customer has not got a fault requiring the engineer to perform a test.

I have actually experienced numerous occasions, most often recognising a hardware fault, where items such as care line pendants make frequent calls to 123 to test the line. I've seen a few instances whereby the pendant was faulty and doing this line test every 5 minutes, which as you can imagine, caused quite a call charge.

RealAleMadrid
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Optimatts  I am afraid you are wrong, engineers often search for inactive (spare) line pairs, so try dialling on other peoples lines which do not have a fault to try to find an unused line. Also my mother has had a care line pendant for the last 6 or 7 years and I don't believe the careline system ever dials 123, I have certainly seen no evidence and check her bills regularly. So my money is on so called engineers behaving badly.Smiley

Browni
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

I have had a care line for over 4 years and it hasn't dialled '123' yet.
Leapy
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Optimatts  I don't think they would find much of the time information in a One-Second  callGrin

 

I'm not aware of any devices that have been configured  or have permission to use my landline and I don't think I have upset any of them enough to run up my phone bill to spite me Roll_eyes

 

 

 

 


 

Leapy
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Townman  Click bait! Cheesy I like the sound of that. Maybe it's a good headline for other social media 

 

You must agree that logically my linear mathematics is quite sound.Wink

 

I know it's only ten bob in old money, but it's the principle that bugs me and the thought of the machines being in control (as @Optimatts  claims) of my phone bill , (and maybe other things) is quite disturbing Sad

Leapy
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@RealAleMadrid I like your thinking Smiley conspiracy theory!

 

Have I ever upset a phone Engineer or one of their subcontractors?...let me think Roll_eyes

 

Devices that might call 123? No, mine all dial 666 Evil for the hell of it and three policemen come to the door doing handstands! Cheesy

Leapy
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Browni  Well done, for standing up to them! We can't have people badmouthing care-line machine technology  (not that we have one, but any machines can use the phone so @Optimatts  tells me))

 

Leapy
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Mav  I'm told it's not an accounting issue. So is it really in the right place?

Mav
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Re: PlusNet £1800 an hour phone bill!

@Leapy 

An erroneous charge to 123 usually turns out to be a billing issue rather than a phone fault as per reports of engineers using it to test lines.

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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear - Mark Twain
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