phone bill - international/premium rate calls unaccounted for

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sloggi

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Today i got a shock to realise that my eircom DD had come out of my account and it amounted to €570. my usual is about €70 for landline and BB.

really bad - but i usually dont even check the bill as it's so consistent and i dont recall getting this one through the post. I checked online bill and low and behold most of the phone charges relate to international and premium rate 1550/1580 numbers.

the weird thing is that all the international calls are to St Helena and the majority were made on Dec 26th when i was in my mothers all day and my partner may have been in the house at the time but we cant pin point exactly when he had to leave for work and whether calls happened before or after he left the house. Its also relevant to say that neither of us barely know where St Helena is never mind anyone there and we have no call for international calls usually.

This is where it gets a bit dodgy - the premium numbers (i checked a few numbers from mobile to see what they were for) appear to be these party line type things. Now I know i didn't make the calls and my partner assures me that he didn't make the calls so we are dumbfounded. Also we had no guests/children over the period.

Called eircom who focused on the international calls and apparently there were lots of scams involving dial up connections and St Helena but as i had BB he wasn't sure how this could have happened. The premium calls are harder to address as i was in work when most of them happened (all day time, weekday - one costing a whopping €28 for a 14 minute call and there are 2 - 7 per day various lengths and the multi day ones have only a couple of second between hang up and redial). I've found 2 over the xmas period when i think i was at home. Problem is my partner works nights and is supposed (!!) to be sleeping when these other calls take place. Now we have a very secure relationship so no blame there just that we cant prove we weren't in the house. Eircom guy is passing the matter to his supervisor to look into and will get back to me tomorrow allegedly.

I'm wondering if anyone has any similar experience and what I can do to check these calls and prove bill is incorrect. Also I do not have enough cash to meet the bill and am hoping to ask bank tomorrow to recall dd, if they dont do it automatically as not enough funds in account to meet DD. Would prefer to owe eircom money than have them owe me.

Has anyone any advice please? Sorry for long post!
 
There was something a few years ago about autodiallers and such things to similar islands. Maybe ring ComReg for advice - at the time they were quite active.
 
Do you have any type of cordless phone ?

Does any old modem (dial up type) in your pc still connect to your phone line ?
 
My brother had a similar situation with TalkTalk and a cordless phone. Neither his or his wife made the calls (to Poland or similar). I dont think it was for that much cash, but they ended up paying it....dont think they fought that hard though
 
Is there anyway that someone could 'tap' into your line to make these calls offsite, ie not at your house? Is your broadband protected?
Someone could have been outside dialling on their computer using your phone line perhaps?
 
Smashbox said:
Is there anyway that someone could 'tap' into your line to make these calls offsite, ie not at your house? Is your broadband protected?
Someone could have been outside dialling on their computer using your phone line perhaps?
Click to expand...

Broadband modems don't work like that , they have no way to access the analogue part of the line and initiate a call.

The only way this happened are :
1) Cordless phone , someone sitting outside house making calls
2) Someone with physical access to the house , phone or phone line
3) Analogue modem still connected to the phone line
 
thanks for the responses guys. my BB is wireless (through eircom) and i turn off the modem when not in use so the auto dialler thing couldn't have happened to me apparently, also never had a dial up modem. Of course there is the obvious - that my partner could have been making the calls but he's too tight (!!) to spend that money on that sort of call expecially when, as he says he can see and hear on the internet if he wants to!!!! :)

Eircom called me today to say that they'd completed an initial check on the line and no "cross wires" were found. i can contact their customer service people if i'm still not happy and they'll take the matter further and investigate further on my own behalf (these checks were for their benefit or something) so tonight we are going to trace our step, see who or when we definately were out of the house etc so we have stronger case.

We have a cordless phone, its an eircom 7000, so would be interested in further info on this angle - how might this effect the line?

Thanks again
 
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Did you check your computer history to see if there are any dodgy websites accessed .
If someone in your house was using computer and clicked on one of these 'dodgy ' websites , maybe your there was an auto dialler in the background .

Something similar to this happened us 6 months ago , but we got it in time and disconnected immediately .
 
theory with cordless would be that someone with the same cordless would sit outside your house and get coverage on your line
 
allthedoyles said:
Did you check your computer history to see if there are any dodgy websites accessed .
If someone in your house was using computer and clicked on one of these 'dodgy ' websites , maybe your there was an auto dialler in the background .

Something similar to this happened us 6 months ago , but we got it in time and disconnected immediately .
Click to expand...

Auto dialers only work when there is an analogue modem in place.

sloggi said:
We have a cordless phone, its an eircom 7000, so would be interested in further info on this angle - how might this effect the line?
Click to expand...


Someone sitting outside your house with an eircom 7000 handset running up your bill.
 
Had a similar experience some eleven years ago got a bill from eircom for around six hundred for calls made to a site diega grascia no calls were made from home had a dial up connection at the time had to pay eircom in the end
 
Something like this happened to us and it turned out a family member who had a key had been coming into the house and using the phone while we were at work.
Could it be something like that.
 
Going back about fifteen years ago, my mam went to make a call and could faintly hear another conversation in the background. It sounded like the girl about four houses up.

Then the bill arrived and there were calls to Cyprus. We dont and have never known anyone in Cyprus. The calls were only for a total of about £5, so I dont think my mam did much.

A couple of weeks later, she was speaking to the girl up the road. She said she thought she could hear my mam speaking to someone when she was calling her boyfriend in Cyprus. Eircom still did not want to know.
 
jhegarty said:
Someone sitting outside your house with an eircom 7000 handset running up your bill.
Click to expand...

oh good god thats appalling!! and of course my handset would be fairly popular i suppose. Scaring me now that others have had to pay the bill. So, is there no way to prove that someone might have being doing this? i bet eircom wont entertain this claim and force me to pay. Would it be pure speculation to suggest this is the cause to eircom?

Would the phone not have to be tuned to the base station, or whatever its called, in order for this to work?

i know what you're saying gabsdot bout a family member (there was much accusation in our house last night) but actually no one has a key to our place and and i said the partner is usually sleeping by day so it would be a bit risky to try that tack.

What seems strange to me is that its multiple calls consecutively - i.e. call 1) happens at 2pm and lasts 14 minutes call 2) commences at 2.14pm and lasts 5 minutes, call 3) commences at 2.19pm, etc. And also on consecutive days. Thats why it seemed more likely to be some kind of auto dialer thing even though i know its not possible if no dial up modem connected to phone line. Also i live in a very small and quiet estate, though probably is a bit vacant duing work hours but still, the idea of someone sitting outside the house getting his or her jollies at my expense is bit disturbing. Also i dont exactly live in a metropolis.

Just final observations that i probably should have mentioned in case its relevant, my sky+ box is continuously connected to the phone line....would this cause problems?

thanks again for all the feedback
 
sloggi said:
Just final observations that i probably should have mentioned in case its relevant, my sky+ box is continuously connected to the phone line....would this cause problems?
Click to expand...


I would be very surprised. But just to be sure click :

SERVICES, 4, 0, 1, SELECT

Then go to Telephone Settings , Select

Make sure the dialing prefix is empty.
 
jhegarty said:
I would be very surprised. But just to be sure click :

SERVICES, 4, 0, 1, SELECT

Then go to Telephone Settings , Select

Make sure the dialing prefix is empty.
Click to expand...

jh, i went to service then 4 but only have 1 - 8 options in this screen, no 0. can you advise please

Cheers
 
sloggi said:
jh, i went to service then 4 but only have 1 - 8 options in this screen, no 0. can you advise please

Cheers
Click to expand...


It's hidden. Just press the numbers on the remote, nothing will happen on the screen for some of them.
 
jhegarty said:
It's hidden. Just press the numbers on the remote, nothing will happen on the screen for some of them.
Click to expand...

aaaahhhhhhhh genius......nah, nothing in the dialing prefix line mores the pity!! back to the drawing board on this one!!
 
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