WARNING BEWARE PHONE SCAM

[hurn]

just looked at the house phone bill and i have 3 phone calls from a local number that charges you £7.89 for answering your call
been on to the service provider and advised all the relevant sites to try and block these numbers
it is a scam and really there is fu ck all you can do about it unless you have caller display then you choose weather or not to answer it.
they are (plusnet,bt) starting a investigation into it as i type..so just a warning to alll please be wary and carefull..it scammed me 3 times

[madgremlin]

scamming bastards.

[Freeman Stephen]

Someone should make a honeypot using eu agency phone numbers. Either it costs the scammers jailtime or it costs the eu resources it exploited from us. Its a win win.

[frogmanbrabs]

Can you tell us anymore about the call? I recently joined plusnet form BT and last week I had an automated call about my answerphone service.

[Freeman Stephen]

I think you have to make an original call to the company before they can charge you a premium on callback. this scam was anticipated by the mobile networks who provide the same service to telecom based companies and this was the basic safeguard, with a stipulation that the charging company had to do additional filing when you agreed to be charged for lets say an alarm call or a stock market change, but a scamster could just say you agreed and hope to not be found out. but there had to be a record of an original call before this ability could kick in.

[hurn]

the phone calls are like cold callers they just pick random numbers then phone you and as soon as you answer bingo charges apply and you cant do anything about it you dont hear anything on the other end and if you hang up you still get charged the full amount
just waiting on more info from the providers then ill update for ys

[colinskipper007]

Can't u sue the provider and demand a refund as its against your contact to pay for calls ANSWERED!
Colin

[hurn]

update
plusnet are a bunch of automated calltakers who work from a script because they are brain dead zombos
they say it was a operator assisted call so charges apply
police say it was a scam from a call box with some device (im taking no further action just with plusnett for there lovely customer services)
plusnet will not re emberse my credits so these fuc kers will get a massive run up bill then get told to fuc k off services no longer required
they cant do fu ck all as i didnt sign a contract with them so adiós toss-pots


heres the messages from me to them and back again .read if ya interested and if anyone has suggestion


Question #57988905 - Your Feedback
< Back
Mark Gannon - CSC Analyst
4:16pm, Monday 23 Jul 2012
Thank you for your call today,

I am really sorry that you are having trouble with companies ringing you on 0191 numbers and you getting the charge for them.

As discussed it is best to use a phone at home that you can see the number coming through, TPS website can help you too with their support and you might want to go to the police.

I would also advised taking up our offer of 3 months free Choose to refuse service

Please feel free to contact us again for further support

Kind regards,

Mark Gannon

Your Response
6:17pm, Tuesday 24 Jul 2012
what i need to know is how do they collect the charges and can you or bt not stop the payment to them as how else do they steal my money off yourselves i think as you are the providers know about this scam you should be responsible for stopping it not me as i am your customer and i am getting shafted by a service that you provide..my phone number is a new number and was x directory so as service providers explain please how my number was released to the thief's
as for taking up the offer of choose to refuse this service would be useless in this instance as they will change numbers frequently so this would mean that i would still be vulnerable to scamming by no fault of myself which i have no control over.so as a service provider i think it is your companies duty to sort this all out and not provide them with payment .it should be a internal investigation done by yourselves and bt .if a company knows a scam is going around they have a moral duty to sort it out not ,me as your customer.

James Somerville - CSC Analyst
6:04am, Wednesday 25 Jul 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,
Thank you for your query.

The calls from 0191 are from the Durham area code. The charges are as a result of an operator assisted call, or a reverse charges call. As the numbers are calling you, this means that when answering the phone, you are confirming with an operator that you are accepting the reverse charges call, and therefore the associated charges.

As the charges are paid to the company arranging the reverse charges call (BT or 0800reverse for instance), then the company calling you would in no way be benefiting from calling you as they would make no money from this.

As such this would not be a scam call.

As for where the company may have gotten your number, this may have been sold to them by another company for marketing purposes (not a practice that we carry out), or it may be they had the number on record from when it has previously been in use as due to the finite numbers available, BT will re-use these.

Please do not hesitate to get back in touch online at http://contactus.plus.net or by phone on 0800 432 0200 if we can be of further assistance.

Kind regards,

James Somerville

Your Response
3:41pm, Wednesday 25 Jul 2012
these calls were definitely not a operator assisted calls as your college told me it was a scam
these calls were answered the usuall way but no body was there so how can you say this, i feel you are just trying to pass the buck and not take responsibllity for this ..this needs to be investigated by yourselves as you are the provider ..there is no way anybody in my house hold would accept calls like this ..not 3 in a row within minutes of each other .i want you as a service provider to investigate this as i will pay the bill but not for those unwarranted phone calls which i was told by your college that there was nothing i could do about it with it being a scam, 0191 is a newcastle area code not durham if you know the source then you need to sort it ..its wrong to pass this and leave the burden on your customer ,i will pay the bill but i wont pay for those scam phone calls,as its wrong for me to pay something knowing its a scam this would mean that i am aiding and abetting criminal activities which i dont subscribe to.please pass all this information on to your investigation team as it needs to be sorted by yourselves not me as your customer

Stuart Pickering - CSC Analyst
11:00pm, Wednesday 25 Jul 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,
Thank you for getting back to us.

Unfortunately we do not have an investigation team for this sort of issue as the actual problem itself is not on our network or something that we internally can resolve.

If you feel that this activity is in any way criminal, which if it is a "scam" then it most surely is then please contact your local Police authorities who have had history in dealing with these kinds of issues when they are reported in mass as you were advised to do in the first part of this ticket.

Please do not hesitate to get back in touch online at http://contactus.plus.net or by phone on 0800 432 0200 if we can be of further assistance.



Kind regards,

Stuart Pickering

Your Response
1:28pm, Thursday 26 Jul 2012
why do youkeep saying "Please do not hesitate to get back in touch online at http://contactus.plus.net or by phone on 0800 432 0200 if we can be of further assistance."
as it is quite clear you are going to give me no assistance what so ever and you are putting the whole lot onto me which is dispicable you provide the service not me so please sort this out ..my next step will be to take this further but not the police as this is part of your companies duty to prevent fraud by unsolicited phone calls that i have no controll over as your college reminded me as he said id be wasting my time blocking there number as they change it quite frequently .i now request you to stop all incoming phone calls to this number untill this matter is resolved as i am not answering the phone with the threat of being charged for a phonecall that would never accepted under normal circumstances

IS THIS A SCAM OR NOT ..you seem to think it isnt but your college said it was so what is it

Jordan Cooke - CSC Analyst
11:07pm, Thursday 26 Jul 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,
Thank you for getting back to us.

In response to your first question, we advise you to contact us if we can be of further assistance, such as new information being provided regarding this situation or if you require help with any other issues. Unfortunately in this case we are unable to provide any further assistance as previously explained.

The problem you are describing is not something we can control from our side, and if you believe the issue to be a scam then it would be advisable to report this to the police who can investigate fraud etc.

I am sorry if an advisor advised this is definitely a scam as we do not have proof of this, it is merely likely this is the case due to the information provided.

Our advise would still remain with contact your local police if you believe this is in fact a fraudulent scam.

If you require any further help you can reply to this ticket or alternatively raise a new query online via https://portal.plus.net/wizard/?p=search. You can call us on 0800 432 0200.

Kind regards,

Jordan Cooke

Your Response
5:37pm, Monday 30 Jul 2012
please respond to my request

Jordan Cooke - CSC Analyst
11:55pm, Monday 30 Jul 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,
Thank you for getting back to us.

I am sorry but which request are you referring to?

As far as I can tell my previous response answered the queries raised.

Please clarify what request you wish us to respond to.

If you require any further help you can reply to this ticket or alternatively raise a new query online via https://portal.plus.net/wizard/?p=search. You can call us on 0800 432 0200. We now offer a free download of our Plusnet Assist Software. This application can solve a lot of issues you may experience, it can be downloaded via this link http://www.plus.net/assist

Kind regards,

Jordan Cooke

Your Response
11:43am, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
to turn off incoming calls ......and i think its disgusting that you are charging me for the scam phone calls i will be taking my services elsewhere as your customer services are nill and not very helpfull .especially when i was told of one of your staff that this is definately a scam and there is nothing i can do about it even if you change the phone number
as a service provider i think its dispicable that you are refusing to help me when i pay for a service..you can controll what happens on the line and i will be asking bt to investigate this and also i cant believe that as a company you do not have a investigation team .as a company you can find out who rented the number but choose to take my money and run

Your Response
12:30pm, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
i have just read on a official website that you as a company have a obligation to the customer to sort this out as
that turning a blind eye, (which i thik your company is doing )or taking money generated as a result of criminal activity, when they knew or suspected it was criminal, could result in them committing an offence under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
cmon look at the evidence 3 phone calls within minutes of each other ,charged for 3 min each for so called operator call and scammed the same amount for each call ..is there any more excuses you want to throw at me as as all these correspondences will be forwarded on to the appropiate departments and authotities

Your Response
1:47pm, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
as refering to your recent post

"The calls from 0191 are from the Durham area code. The charges are as a result of an operator assisted call, or a reverse charges call. As the numbers are calling you, this means that when answering the phone, you are confirming with an operator that you are accepting the reverse charges call, and therefore the associated charges".

these calls were from a phone box in benton newcastle .so please could i have a breakdown of the type of call it was and the type or which operator this call supposedly went through,this is fraud as i was informed of the police .so could you ammend the bill please as i will not pay to be scammed

Josh Hill - CSC Analyst
3:30pm, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,

Thanks for getting back to us.

I am sorry for the issues that have been caused by this.

There is no provision to be able to block all incoming calls on a phone line. Therefore we would not be able to apply this to your line. The only option like this would be the Choose To Refuse which we discussed with you at the start of this problem where you can block certain numbers. We would provide this service free for 3 months at which point it would cost £6 per quarter to continue using.

Unfortunately, at this moment, there is no proof that these calls are definitely a scam. At the moment, you are using what my colleague has told you which in fact, was just opinion. We have now way to prove that this was in fact a scam call and as such we are still charged for these calls by our provider and therefore this is why we are still charging you for these calls.

We are not refusing to help you, unfortunately there is no help that we can give for this situation. We have given you all the information that is available to us with regards to these calls and this is available on your itemised phone bill. We do not have any other information in our systems with regards to these at all.

As stated before, the only point we can see to direct this towards any form of scam or criminal activity is that one of our employee's opinion that this may be a Scam. There is no proof to this effect at this point and as stated before, we are charged for these calls as a provider and this is why the charges are on your bill.

With regards to your last point, there is no more information that we can give to you with regards to these calls. All the information we have is included on your itemised phone bill.

As stated in previous replies, there is honestly nothing that we can do to assist you further with this issue. If there was, we would be doing it. I can understand that this is a very frustrating and upsetting episode, however if there was anything we could do to resolve this for you, we would have done it by now instead of consistently advising that we are unable to do anything. The only advise we can give would be to contact your local police station for help regarding this situation.

I apologise that you wish to leave us due to this. Should you still want to do this, please talk to our Customer Options Team. They are available on 0800 432 0200, between 9AM and 5:30PM, Monday to Friday.

Please do not hesitate to get back in touch online at https://portal.plus.net/wizard/?p=search if we can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Josh Hill


Your Response
5:21pm, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
dispicable and disgusting even the police couldn't believe your companies attitude
and i am really glad that i recorded you colleague when he told me it was a scam and it didnt sound like a opinion to me as he explained it to me on the phone .all correspondence and recordings will be sent to ofcom and the police
i will not be paying to be scammed as its my right as your customer. prove to me that these were operator assisted calls as i cannot trust any word from your company so please provide proof that this is not a scam before i pay the bill as these calls were made from a pay phone there should be a record of the operator assistance call so please provide proof of this

Martha Billingham - CSC Analyst
6:46pm, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,

Thank you for getting back to us,

As my colleagues have repeatedly stated, we have no way of proving nor disproving that the call is a scam. We have no idea what was said on the call as it would be against data protection for us to listen to your calls.

This issue itself now it outside the control of the customer service team and as such I recommend should you wish to get OfCom and the police involved, that you first speak with our complaints department. As we have advised, there is nothing further we can do however It's unlikely OfCom will assist if you have not attempted to contact our Complaints team to seek a resolution to this case.

You can see our complaints procedure here:
http://www.plus.net/support/service/pol ... tice.shtml

Please also note, it is not looked lightly upon recording calls with our members of staff without their prior permission and this cannot be admissible as evidence. One persons belief would not be able to be used as proof that Plusnet as a company believe the call was a scam, especially, as I said, if the call was recorded without knowledge of the adviser. Again - we have no way of knowing whether or not it was. All we can see is how much the call cost, the number and the time you called it.

I ask you kindly as a matter of stopping this vicious circle to close this question and take the matter up with out complaints department as neither myself nor any of my colleagues will be able to resolve this issue nor progress it.

Kind regards,

Martha Billingham

Your Response
8:29pm, Tuesday 31 Jul 2012
im sorry but i did not call that number ..the number phoned our telephone that is why im disputing it ..if i had phoned that number then i accept the bill but as i did not phone it and it was a incoming call that i had no controll over
as for your call taker he was made aware that i was recording the call and the time and date were recorded electronically on the computer so it will be admissible in a court of law .i agree it should be passed onto your other fob off department i await them contacting me soon

James Somerville - CSC Analyst
5:24am, Wednesday 1 Aug 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,
With any reverse transfer charges call, you are advised that it is such a call by the operator prior to your accepting the call. If you opt to accept such a call you are aware that you will be liable for the charges for such a call.

If the calls originate from a call box, then the caller would be assumed to be going through a 3rd party reverse transfer call service. Therefore the caller is not going to be making a profit from the call.

If you do not wish to be charged for such calls, then it is simple to block them by not accepting the call when the operator advises you that you have a reverse charges call. These are not put through automatically, and therefore you should only be receiving these calls by choice. As such any call charges resulting from such a call are correct and would be charged as such.

Further to this we have offered an appropriate service, choose to refuse, which would also give you the option of refusing such calls. If you opt not to take this service, then there is no further support we can offer you in this issue.

If you wish to raise a formal complaint in this regard, then please do so through our correct complaints procedure so that our complaints team can assess this in full. The complaints procedure can be found here:-

http://www.plus.net/support/service/pol ... e=keymatch

Kind regards,

James Somerville

Your Response
10:10am, Wednesday 1 Aug 2012
you lot just dont read what people write do you we DID NOT ACCEPT ANY OPERATOR ASSISTED CALLS
YOU HAVE YOUR MONEY NOW SO YOUR SHAREHOLDERS WILL HAVE SMILES ON THERE FACES ,YOU HAVE DONE YOUR CORPORATE HOER WORK AND GOT WHAT THEY WANT ..RIPPING CUTOMERS OFF AND NOT READING WHAT HAD HAPPENED ..I WILL WRITE IT AGAIN UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WAS ANY OPERATOR CALL ACCEPTED .LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE IT DOESNT ADD UP ,YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS NON EXISTANCE AND I WILL GO TO THE PRESS AND TV ABOUT THIS I WILL EXPOSE YOUR COMPANY AND ITS EMPLOYEES AS LIARS AS I HAVE THE EVIDENCE FROM ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES RECORDED WITH DATES AND HIS NAME I WILL ALSO GIVE THEM ALL A COPY OF ALL THESE CORRESPONDENCE FROM YOURSELVES
THATS THE TROUBLE WITH MONEY PROFITEERS THEY SELL THEMSELVES TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER BUT I WILL NOT BE USED TO AID AND ABET BLATANT PHONE SCAMS AS ANYONE WITH HALF A BRAIN CAN SEE FROM THE EVIDENCE ..PROVE TO ME AND SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE THAT IT WAS A OPERATOR ASSISTED CALL YOU HAVE THE MEANS TO DO THIS ..AS YOU HAVE STOLEN THE PAYMENT YOU AS A COMPANY HAVE AIDED A SCAM AND NOW ARE AS GUILTY AS THE SCAMMERS WITH NO ASSISTANCE FOR YOUR PAYING CUSTOMER
VERY DISSAPOINTING YOUR ADVERTISING NOW IS A BLATANT LIE AND ALL THIs WILL BE PASSED ON TO THE DTI AND IM SURE IM NOT THE FIRST DISGRUNTLED CUSTOMER THAT YOU AS A CORPORATION HAS SHAFTED
the least your corporation could of done was stop payment till it was sorted out but then as corporate thiefs i didnt expect anything less .does nobody at your call centre have any authority to fix this or can you not sway from your carefull scripted job suppose it is hard to think for yourselves when your main aim is to just grab the money and fob off the mugs that pay your slave wage
im sorry this has got like this and you are just doing your scripted job and please don't take this personally but ITS YOUR CHOICE TO RIP OFF CUSTOMERS AS PART OF YOUR JOBS ,DO YOU ACTUALLY GO ON A COURSE ON HOW TO SHAFT THE CUSTOMERS

Your Response
10:26am, Wednesday 1 Aug 2012
i will no longer correspond on here as it was a waste of time from start to finish but this will be taken further and everyone that was part of it will be summonsed to a civil court .do you have a legal department or is it the same with your customer service non existents

Steven Day - Distressed Team CB/P
12:41pm, Wednesday 1 Aug 2012
Dear Miss Rudd,
Thank you for getting back to us.

I can appreciate your situation and you have been confirmed our situation on a number on occasions. I will consider this ticket closed as there is nothing else we can confirm for you and our position has been confirmed. If you wish to take further then then you can raise a compliant using the link below, i have also included a link to Ofcom in case you need it.

You can see our complaints procedure here:
http://www.plus.net/support/service/pol ... tice.shtml

Ofcom link:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

Please do not hesitate to get back in touch online at http://contactus.plus.net or by phone on 0800 432 0200 or 0345 140 0200 if we can be of further assistance.

Kind regards,

Steven Day

Your Response
3:58pm, Wednesday 1 Aug 2012
don't patronize me .it wont be closed untill i have a resolution as it is a criminal investigation now and all people involved including yourself will be contacted by the police i presume
Your Response
4:03pm, Wednesday 1 Aug 2012
this is a joke isnt it on your webshite

1. How you can complain

(We aim to be number one for Customer Service.) Even so, things can go wrong. When they do, we want to know so we can put them right as quickly as we can. Here are the ways you can complain to us:

thats a bit of a shitty statement lol and true corporate lies

[1.618]

I've had similar recently, kept getting unwanted calls, some where recorded messages about ppi or insurance, my no is meant to be ex directory, i have an option to bar up to 10 different numbers and also an option to bar withheld and anonymous callers. even with all this i still get the calls so i changed my number 3 times, the bastards still kept ringing even after i registered with the TPS. the help centre just kept passing me from one person to another and fobbing me off

in the end i emailed the ceo of orange directly and told him i would hold him personally liable and be charging him if i got any more calls, i got a phone call from some director of a dept and we had a chat but he said pretty much the same thing, told me to buy a phone that displays the number, said he has the same problem so never answers his home phone and if someone knew how to stop the calls they could make a lot of money (yeah ok mr manager!) they can't do a lot because it's an incoming call and they don't log those numbers (bollox they don't!) and that a lot of these are from overseas which means they can't stop anonymous calls from outside the uk, personally i think it's the phone companies themselves doing this to raise funds. my question is this though... if my home phone can tell me what the callers number is then surely the exchange knows which number is calling me?

thankfully since that conversation i haven't had any more unwanted calls, isn't that odd?

[frogmanbrabs]

This is the way to deal with unwanted calls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWndadvT1vs