Telephone hell!

[pinnerite]

My landline and broadband provider who I have been with for many years is TalkTalk. My costs have been reasonablt stable until May when they shot up by 50% to over £62. That turned out to be because of an

0345 number to my previous home insurers to cancel my policy. My June bill is predicted to be over £92. This time there was another call to my new insurer HomeProtect for buildings and contents. Two calls cost £22.56.

But worse were ten unidentifiable calls to Watford number 01923289877 totalling £26.64. Neither my wife, Google nor I could identify the number. TalkTalk cannot helo either.

I dialled it and just heard a continuous background noise.

Has anyone any suggestions?

TIA

[Scott]

I thought companies were required to provide a non-premium number for customer services? Check this out and get them to pay.

Does your tariff not include calls to standard landline numbers? 01923 is not a premium number.

Check Ofcom rules for premium rate numbers. Check call allowance in your tariff. Phone the 01923 number to see who answers.

[Jim Jackson]

From the ofcom web site

"Calls to 03 numbers cost no more than a national rate call to an 01 or

02 number and must count towards any inclusive minutes in the same way as 01 and 02 calls."

01923 is the standard watford code, so again national rate.

Is this some sort of wind-up?

[Adrian Caspersz]

Give up making outbound calls on a landline, when peak time applies.

Instead use a mobile that has included calls to landline.

A giffgaff 15GB data sim cost £10 a month and has unlimited UK calls/texts.

There are other ways.

[Chris Green]

0345 isn't premium, nowadays any 03 number is 'geographical', same price as any call to an 'ordinary' number. If TalkTalk are charging more for 03xx then they're overcharging.

Yes, should be the same price as the 0345 number.

[Fredxx]

You have a phone connected to your landline and you have no included minutes in your package.

I would disconnect the phone PDQ, and stick to your mobile when making calls,

[alan_m]

Google for 01923 289877 (a space between 3 and 2)

[Richard]

Hmmm... Just had a look at their offers and found this:

Yes, but if you make calls without adding a Calls Boost, you’ll be charged our standard rates. There is a £100 call usage limit, but we let you know when you’re close to it.

I guess they told you you were near the £100 limit. Jolly nice of them.

[Andy Burns]

Assuming you're on Talktalk's current published tariff, you'll pay 24p/min for

01/02/03 numbers at all times, so that's nearly 3.5 hours of calls just for those two numbers, is that the right duration?

[Theo]

Shows that 'Who Calls Me' has been searched 7 times for the number, but not what it is. I think the searches might be us Googling for it?

No other useful hits. Did you find different?

Anyway, TalkTalk's regular phone tariff is 24p/min or £14.40 an hour. Which is outrageous, given the actual wholesale call cost is something like

0.1p/min.

Apart from using your mobile, or going VOIP, another option is an over-the-top provider, eg:

the Mobile Rates section)

You register your number, and from it dial their freephone access number (0808 1703703). You then dial the number you want to call. For a regular landline it's then 2p/minute + 4p connection fee. Payment is a monthly direct debit for the calls you use.

Theo

[pinnerite]

I really sought advice on how to tackle a number that WE are charged for dialling. Yet didn't.

Really, who dials a number the seemingly only replies with white noise?

[Andy Burns]

Presumably they provided an itemised bill showing you did call it?

I called it, a woman answered, I then apologised for calling a "wrong" number

[Theo]

According to:

's a BT number in Radlett. Ring any bells?

Given that it's a geographic number, it's less likely to be a scammer or a large business, and more likely to be residential or a small business. Although it's possible the number used to be a BT number and has been ported elsewhere.

No idea, but that it does that is curious. Do you have any kind of alarm / monitoring / emergency care equipment connected to the phone line?

Do you call anyone in that neck of the woods and might have got the number incorrect? For example, put it wrong in your phone memory or pressed 'redial'?

Any pattern to the time of day?

You can challenge the bill:

(I have a long time ago done this successfully with BT - hit the Recall button during dialling and managed to make an expensive international call)

Theo

[Scott]

Sorry, you are correct. I was thinking about 0845.

This rather focuses the issue then. OP must have a very odd tariff.

Note to OP - check the rate for 01/02/03 calls at the time of day you made the call and see if you have been overcharged. Consider a tariff that includes calls to 01/02/03 numbers.

[Scott]

I'm confused now. You said you were cancelling a home insurance policy. That is obviously not white noise.

I have tried your Watford number. It rings out, so not white noise as you suggest and eventually reaches a Voicemail number, which suggests it is probably genuine.

Have you looked at each number on an itemised bill to see time, duration and cost?

[pinnerite]

Thank you.

Can one use it from a cellphone with a singe keystroke or do you have to key the actual phone number in ever time?

Alan

[Scott]

How did you know it was a wrong number? What number were you trying to call and where did you get it in the first place? I don't think you are providing the full story here.

[Andy Burns]

it took a long time to answer earlier, she's probably fed up of various people testing it by now!

[Andy Burns]

I put wrong in scarequotes, to indicate it wasn't really "wrong", just I didn't want to explain to the person that answered why I had called

Err, the first post in this thread

[Scott]

Sorry. I thought you were OP. My mistake.

I am getting confused by all of this. Surely the starting point is the itemised bill.