Landline calling the police

[Keith-D]

I thought that this issue may be similar to a previous message I have just read on this board but in our case the person calling the police knows our home address.

We stopped using our landline over 12 months ago as there seemed to be a fault with the line. This was not an issue for us as we rarely used it and disconnected all our phones from the landline socket.

3 months ago the police visited our house to investigate a distress call that they had received from a landline registered to our address. The number that the police gave was not recognised by us and we mentioned that we have no phones connected.

This morning at 2.30am we had another visit from the police. They had received a call from a number registered to our address but this time the caller had whispered the first line of our address before ending the call. Again we mentioned that we have no phones connected and do not recognise the number that was used to call the police.

I've since checked our phone number on our latest virginmedia bill and found that the number is not what we expected it to be. I can see from previous bills that our telephone number was changed around August/September time last year. We did renew our contract with Virgin last year but we did not expect the phone number to have changed nor were we advised that it had changed. I don't know if this new number is the one being used to contact the police but I will be checking with them this afternoon.

I could also see from the virginmedia bills that we are receiving phone useage charges despite not having any phones connected, and also have talk more anytime included in our plan.

I have contacted virginmedia this morning to try and understand what is going on but they couldn't answer my issues. They just said that its all a bit strange and they couldn't find any reason why our number has changed and that they would escalate to their manager to refund useage charges. I tried to explain that was all good but my pressing concern is the police turning up at our door at 2.30 in the morning, and that I need to speak to someone urgently to find out if something more malicious is happening. The virgin operator then hung up on me.

I would appreciate if anyone could help me to understand if it is possible for someone to hack into our telephone line for malicious purposes?

[goslow]

Random calls to the police have been mentioned in the past for VM landline customers with no phone connected.

How does your VM phone line operate at the moment (via a conventional wall socket or via the phone connection on the back of the VM hub) or does the line still have a fault from your POV?

Phantom calls and call charges seem to happen more with conventional lines via a telephone wall socket when described on here. The explanation is often a 'crossed line' where your service is connected to another customer or customers.

Have you tested the line since the police visit to confirm you can make calls in/out OK and check the number the line is presenting as its caller ID when calling out? Quite often in cases of 'phantom calls' a fault is present on the line.

Some past topics on here have mentioned landline customers who did not engage in VM's phone switchover process (to a hub connection) have had their lines disconnected and, when they were reconnected, found they had a new number. Could that have happened in your case and a new number been created when you renewed your package?

The mention of your address in one of the emergency calls is unusual feature of your description though.

[David_Bn · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your post on our Community Forums @Keith-D and a very warm welcome to you!

I'm terribly sorry to hear of the very strange occurrence, and for the distress that the visits from the police must have caused.

Check out the envelope in the top right hand corner for a private message from me, and we'll take a closer look into this for you.

Kindest regards,

David_Bn