Watchout for Sneaky Misdialed Phone Services!

I got my company phone bill the other day, nothing unusual about that just another part of my expenses to be checked and filled out. However whilst going through I came across something very strange. I had several 10-20 minutes calls to a premium rate phone service called "Personal Roadwatch", no number of anything just that, now:

1) This is a company phone and nobody uses it except me.
2) I've never intentionally called this service and never would do.
3) I don't call premium rate services on my phone, EVER. I know I have to present the bill for my expenses and then it has to go to accounts it's just not something I'm going to do.

So I called the company and queried the bill telling them I'd never used that service and certainly not several times that month for LONG periods. Anyway they came back and said the calls had come from my handset so I asked them what number. It turns out the number for this premium rate service (just one of these calls was over £20) is "2222". Which means that the service was probably (although there is no way to tell) misdialed while the phone was in my pocket or in my laptop case (it's relatively easy for my phone to become unlocked while in transit).

Anyway I straight away asked to have this service and any others like it removed from my phone only to be told that this is not possible if I want to keep using my phone internationally (which I do, I travel all the time for my work, I leave to fly to Milan in an hour). I've told them if they can't do this I will have to stop using our Vodaphone contract (as will many others who also have this problem, our CEO and various other managers included), it doesn't seem to bother them and they don't want to budge.

It seems that Vodaphone has set up these commonly misdialed numbers for the sole purpose of harvesting some easy money from people making calls unintentionally. The only thing they said is "We suggest you keep your handset locked whenever it's not in use" (I do). So if you use Vodaphone check your bill this month carefully! I'm lucky that:

a) My company believe me.
b) My company is prepared to foot the bill while they sort it out with Vodaphone otherwise I'd be £52 out of pocket right now.

Others may not be in such a fortunate position.

Darkheart

Selfishness and the Almighty Profit is the new religion. By todays standards they have done nothing wrong. In fact they'll probably be made into saints!

that stinks!

My phone dialled 999 once when it was in my pocket (even with the keypad locked you can STILL dial 999 - WHY?!). I could hear a little voice going "hello?". I thought I'd suddenly developed schizophrenia.

When I figured out what was going on, I had to explain and apologise. :s

At least it was free, I suppose it coulda been worse.

I tested someone's modem once by stupidly typing in 9999999 as the test number. We got call back on their house phone with a proper telling off from the emergency services for wasting their time. I felt pretty stupid infront of the customer as well.

Vodaphone recently sent me a letter apologising for withdrawing £250 from my bank account ... I am on a low tariff usually paying around £22 a month. The stupid thing is they wouldn't refund the money back and put it as a "credit" so any further bills will be removed from the credited amount. I am considering closing my account with them and get a pay as you go service.

i accidentally speeddialed my brother at the 2000/01 glastonbury festival by leaning on the pryamid railings ... his answerphone got a muffled cos my phone was in my pocket "baby eating" bishop of bath and wells sunday surmon

I got called up here in Norway from someone in the US once. I could hear them talking in a car, so I listened in a little :D

Dunno what it costs for them though, but 2 minutes isn't that bad.

I don't know what the laws are where you live, but I seriously doubt they allow for entities to withdraw random amounts of money from your bank accounts and then refuse to give it back to you. I would not accept this credit garbage unless the amount was insignificant.

SpaceAce

Buy a clamshell phone.

Not heard of this before, but sounds like a job for the (utterly useless) Ofcom.

I get random calls from an automated service informing me that a free international call is incoming.
The guy says, "Please type in X X X X now to accept"

(where X X X X is a specific number)

Now, I seem to recall there being a scam where typing in the number links you up with a premuim rate service?

Needless to say I hang up pronto

My current (and previous) phone is clamshell design... impossible to dial anything by accident.

Have anyone tried "666"? THAT might cost your soul...

I tried 666 and it was a woman, she said the number I had dialed had not been recognised. I was very relieved to still have my soul!

I once got calls from a modem or fax every 5 minutes, the whole day long. My phone did not show any number, so in the evening I fetched a fax from my neighbour, plugged it in, and received about 15 pages full of of contract stuff between a chemical plant and a company in the middle east ;)

I called them back and told the story, but their receptionist did not trust me. I told her some details from the contract and after the usual "wait a minute and hold the line" I got a man from the IT department. He was very sorry and excused that they switched a number while feeding their faxserver.

Funny story, but true ;)

She didn't say she was my ex-wife did she? o.O

Um, no, all she said was "The number you have dialled has not been recognised. Please replace the handset and try again."

Not at all, just a little less likely. I carry my clamshell phone in my jeans pocket, and on more than one occasion have (re)dialed by accident because my carkey or something slid in between the keypad

More annoyingly, since they assume you won't accidentally dial there is no option to actually lock the keys.

My previous phone was a brick shape, and it had the incredibly inconvenient 'feature' that even when the keypad was locked, the '9' and '1' keys stay operational.. so all day long you have beeping noises coming from your locked phone when walking around, and (only) one time I accidentally dialed 911. No way to lock it completely. :-(




I get about one random call a week from an automated service that start jabbing away in Spanish. No idea what the heck they're trying to tell me, and when I redial there never is any answer. Sure is annoying, since they call at the oddest hours.