Speaking Clock

[David0]

Hi all, apologies if this has been a topic before. My mum has onset dementia & has been accruing nearly £200 a month bills phoning the speaking clock at all times of the day/night. She insists in switching off her electric clocks to save electricity, but it seems is calling the speaking clock to see if her battery clocks are at the right time, or just to hear a voice. Anyway, has anyone any ideas if the speaking clock can be blocked? I have spoken to VM & the lady was extremely rude, unhelpful & refused to pass me to a supervisor as they wouldnt take my call. She told me that pretty much it was tough as the user had made the calls & had no set duty of care. She then said it was an alarm connected to mums phone line, which she doesn't have. I spoke to a lovely guy at BT to see if they were able to give advice & sure enough they could block that number from being called as for BT customers & suggested that the provider should be able to. I live 400 miles away from my mum, so its not as easy as popping in to see her. Thanks.

[goslow · Accepted solution]

You could consider fitting a trueCall Secure device to your mother's line

https://www.truecall.co.uk/category-s/117.htm

https://www.truecall.co.uk/category-s/139.htm

which would allow you to control calls in/out. The remote web service allows you to monitor calls in/out on the line.

Second hand units come up on eBay at much lower cost (with the usual caveats that apply to eBay purchases). The different models do slightly different things. I think the 'Secure' version is aimed at family members who want to administer a phone line for an older relative.

[Joseph_B]

Hey @David0,

Welcome to the Community Forums and thanks for the post.

Sorry to hear of the issues she is facing, depending on the number itself it is something that could be looked into getting blocked, with this it may be worth considering adding call barring, you can learn more about this here.

Joe

[David0]

Great, thank you for your reply.

[Gareth_L]

Hello Dacid0

Which option you decide to take, Can you please let us know.

Providing you have Power of Attorney for your Mums account we can get the call barring applied for you.

It must be a really worrying time for you and we do want to be able to help take some of the stress away.

Gareth_L

[goslow]

Does VM call barring allow the customer to block individual numbers (in the OP's case the speaking clock number 123)?

From the VM phone guide, page 8

https://assets.virginmedia.com/resources/pdf/Your-VM%20Phone-Guide.pdf

the barring seems to be very limited to 'types' of number or dialling prefixes and even more limited on the 'Purple' phone zone connection which, AIUI, is a connection from the VM hub.

[David0]

Hi Gareth, yes I have POA for her. Does the call barring stop her calling certain numbers or just blocks unwanted numbers calling her? If it stops her calling out to the speaking clock, then brilliant, lets do it!

[Daniel_Et]

Hi @David0, thank you for your response.

Call barring would prevent different types of outgoing calls, as stated in this article here.

In order to look into this for you further, we'll send you a private message on here. Look out for the envelope in the top right-hand corner.

If you're on a portable device with a smaller screen, click on the icon in the top right-hand corner and select "messages" from the additional menu options.

Regards,
Daniel