gosh calls

[wan_amri]

I have virgin media phone landline.

In the last few times our landline received phone calls but when we picked up the handset to answer the calls, we can only hear background noise at the other end. Keep saying hello but nothing. Put the handset down. After few seconds, picked the handset up to check who had called. However instead of dialing tone, we hear the same background noise. Put the handset back down. And left it for few seconds again. Then picked up the handsset to check again. But still same background noise was heard. We had this after few times. Then after few minutes handset not being touched, we got the dialing tone again.

We checked the last number and told us that my husband mobile number had called. When this incident happened, the mobile number was actually on the desk in front of my husband and was not being used to call our landline at all.

These kinds of incidents have happened in the last few days for numerous occasions.

We contacted Virgin Media but they are no help at all.

Is the anyone out there knowing how and why these happen?

[Buenchico]

You are being called from an overseas call centre which is automatically dialling lots of numbers simultaneously. If, when you answer the phone, there aren't enough staff to speak to you, you will either here a dead line or the background noise of the call centre.

When you receive an incoming call the line remains connected until the other person terminates the call. If you put the receiver down, and then pick it up again, you'll still be connected to the incoming call.

Calls received from overseas (particularly from call centres) usually don't support the 'caller ID' function. If you dial 1471 with BT you'll get an announcement telling you the time of the call and that "We do not have the caller's number to return the call". However Virgin choose not to provide you with such rather useless information. Their system ignores any calls with no 'caller ID' and instead tells you the number of the last caller whose phone did provide them with a number. (In this case, your husband's mobile).

Chris