The case of the Phantom Phone Call

I’ve just come back from France - lucky me - to find a phone bill from Virgin Mobile with a large spurious call charge - unlucky me. It says I’ve called 07953968999 for 166 minutes!!! Which obviously I haven’t. Here’s the evidence:

Phantom 1Phantom 2

So, no calls there that are 166 minutes long. In fact, I’m surprised how few calls I made in France (the roaming entry). Where did it come from then? A quick Google and it appears that 07953968999 is the WAP connection setting for Virgin/T-Mobile in the UK. But here’s the thing - I haven’t used WAP or any other circuit-switched data (as you see from the data calls entry). And the phone can’t automatically connect - there’s a confirmation button. So Virgin are trying bill me for a phantom call.  How does that work? If anyone has any idea, please let me know.

January 29, 2008 | Filed Under Computing, Life, Posts 

Comments

One Response to “The case of the Phantom Phone Call”

  1. Pete A on May 30th, 2008 7:39 pm

    Hi there
    My names Pete i actualy work in the virgin mobile technical team and am investigating in calls similar to this.
    The number dialled you are correct is the Virgin/T-Mobile CSD WAP dial up number, handsets typicaly older handset seem to be dialling them to be honest at random trying to connect to the no longer CSD WAP service.

    If you can drop me an e-mail on alcockp@hotmail.co.uk ( my personnal mail address ) as i am currently looking for examples of these events.

    Best regards
    Pete

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