Hub 5 phone line problem - adds 1111 to numbers

[Crazyforcats]

I'm trying to help my elderley aunt with her landline. 

She recently was sent a Hub 5. Internet works great but nothing but problems with the phone. 

Plugged her BT Premium Phone in and it sort of worked. She started getting phantom calls showing up on her Calls list but no actual calls.

Thought it was a similar problem to this https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Home-Phone/Constant-quot-no-number-calls-quot-since-moving-to-I...

An engineer came round yesterday and said that her phone was incompatible with VMs Hub 5 - not sure how true this is as I wasn't there to ask questions. 

I tested the phone this morning and found it was plugged into TEL 2 port so wouldn't work, Swapped to TEL 1 and started getting somewhere. 

Manually dialled a number and it rang out fine. BUT added numbers to Contact list in phone (a must as she has TRUECALL added/built into the BT phone) tried dialling out on several contacts and it adds 1111 to the number - this immediately dials NHS 111.

Is it the phone or the VM line? Is there a fix without having to buy a new phone as that was not mentioned when the new Hub was offered?

[Ashleigh_C]

Thank you so much for updating @Crazyforcats and we are so happy that things are now looking a little better. 

Please do continue to let us know how this progresses and if your Aunt is able to activate the Trucall blocker on her new handset. 

[goslow]

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@Crazyforcats wrote:

Update: yes I work quickly.

BT Premium phone works fine at my house on a BT landline. Took my own BT 3570 to my aunt's and that works fine. Only issue is that she doesn't have the Trucall blocker on the 3570.

Either it will be a new phone, once VM come up with a compatible list or VM are able to fix the issue so that the BT Premium works with a Hub 5.

Thanks for the replies. I might be back with updates in future.

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You have now, at least, been able to satisfy yourself that the problem lies with the connection of the BT premium phone to the Hub 5 (and its unpredictable telephone capabilities).

Just curious to know the history of the problem ...

How did your elderly aunt end up being given a Hub 5 (which is VM's newest model and designed to run VM's highest package speeds)?

How was her phone connected before she got the Hub 5? Via another earlier model of hub? Did she have any problems via the previous hub's phone connection?

Or did she end up with a Hub 5 to switch her phone from a wall socket connection to a 21CV connection from the back of the VM hub?

[Crazyforcats]

I'm not 100% sure how she was offered the Hub 5, but she previously plugged her phone into a wall socket.

I'm just worried that she will answer the phone to a scammer and end up losing a lot of money. She doesn't ignore the calls and engages in conversation with cold callers.

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @Crazyforcats,

Thank you for coming back to us about this situation. You can take a look at our Fraud Calls page to see how you can protect yourself or your aunt from fraud and scam calls. 

We've been in the process of switching our landline systems so that the connection is through the broadband Hub, and not a wall socket, as the older connections are no longer reliable in comparison. 

You can read more about this on our Home Phone Switchover page.

Let us know if there's anything else we can do to help.

Thank you.

[Crazyforcats]

An update:

Two Engineers have visited since I went to help.

One told her to plug the Trucall Phone back in and there wasn't a problem with it.... it kept ringing 1111 in front of number added to contacts - typing in number worked BUT the contacts list is used by the Trucall to block spam calls - Engineer deleted contacts. My aunt started getting spam calls and started panicking again about being told "Amazon are taking £600 out of your account" type calls. ggrrrrrr

Another told her that she should go out and buy a new phone, but made no recommendations....

VM also charged her £25 for each call out - disgraceful, especially considering there is an issue and it hasn't been fixed.

My aunt went out and spent £80 on a new phone......... no idea if it works as I'm washing my hands of VM and the phone. Absolute waste of time!!!

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @Crazyforcats,

Thank you for coming back to us again about this issue. Sorry to hear that this has been your aunt's experience. I'll be happy to look into this further for you to see what we can do to help.

I'll send you a Private Message to investigate this further. Please keep an eye out for a purple envelope at the top right corner of your Forum page. I'll be in touch soon.

Thank you.