Strange problem with +447 and cheap call providers
 

I have a UK o2 number and a number of my callers are reporting a strange bug when they call me. It could be a common problem so I just thought I would check if anyone else here gets this. As far as I know the following problem only happens when I am roaming and for callers from other countries (not the UK) when they use cheap call providers.

Basically, they select a provider for UK mobile and dial my number, then hear a few rings and someone picks up and says "Hello?". My callers realise it is not me and ask to speak to Peter upon which the other guy says: "just a minute" or "hold on" or something to that efect. There is usually some background TV noise (apparantly some economic news channel) and of course they keep on holding but I never appear and eventually they hang up. Of course, I am the only one who ever picks up my mobile phone, so it is all a con to keep people on the line. I have actually tried this calling my own number when I was in Germany once and realised it is all a recording. The gap between the first "hello" and the 2nd statement is the same irrespective of if you say anything!

So is this a con by the cheap telco companies? Some of my callers have reported holding on for up to 5 minutes and at about 15c/min to UK mobiles that is a fair bit of revenue!

Of course I could do a bit more research and find out what call providers they use etc. but I just thought I would check with everyone here first! The problem is especially bad for callers from Germany and the USA. Lately it is getting worse, to the extent that some people have given up on calling me! I am trying to convince them to just use another call provider to call me, but obviously that is out of my control!

Does anyone know what i can do, or has anyone experienced similar problems?

Yes. This has happened to me when I call my sister's tmobile UK number. It also happened to be when I made test calls to my then global sim number(07624). You are absolutely correct. The same hello and background noise, and they always ask you to hold on right away regardless of who you ask for.

Thanks. Good to know it is not just me, and as suspected it is not a particular problem exclusive to o2. I presume you were making calls from the USA? I wish I could try and sort this out.

To try and be objecvtive... there is probably something the Germany based ppgsmers could help with!

My German callers say they get the problem when they are calling with the cheapest "call-by-call" providers found on Billiger-Telefonieren - Der Tarifvergleich für Telefontarife which are most likely the following...

Nr. Ct/min Zugang Takt Tarif
1. 8,20 01058 60/60 01058
2. 8,30 01094 60/60 01094
3. 8,43 01040 60/60 01040
4. 8,49 01012 60/60 01012telecom

Can any of the German members on ppgsm recommend a stable call-by-call provider at lowest possible cost for calling +447 numbering ranges? (one I could suggest for my callers?) Is there another telecom comparison site I can use? Above all, is there a complaint procedure they can adopt with the telcos involved? As I say, the problem just seems to be getting worse all the time, although apparantly has been around for a long time!

Yes. I was calling from the USA. And, I believe I was calling via voicestick, a VOIP provider, on the occasions that it happened.

It's a recording - seems to be Bloomberg TV, and also includes the sound of a dog barking. Some kind of odd glitch response on a busy system?

I first heard about it on newsgroups about a year ago (someone in America calling a Virgin mobile). Then I had it myself a couple of times, read about it on two forums, and coincidentally someone mentioned it to me as something he'd had 3 or 4 times

Some people contacted the calls providers, who are known for not having much customer service response, and one or two found their next charge reduced slightly, but no reply.

I thought it had all died out.

The thing that would concern me most is trying to use a callback provider without a mechanism to dump the call if you never receive the expected first leg, but with any luck your intended callee would get bored with it fairly early, and the system clear down soon after.

Thanks Andy. As suspected it is bound to have been flagged somewhere before, and after your post I did a bit more research and saw a thread on a UK forum (known to you too) where one guy got so worried after phoning his mother and hearing the recording, had assumed his mothers house was being burgled and drove 1 hour to check up on her! (all subsequent calls using "high price" normal phone providers were just diverted to her answering machine). From there, and other threads the problem seems to be particularily bad whilst calling from Betamax/Finarea affiliates (no surprises there), but obviously these guys are pretty much uncontactable and largely unaccountable for their alleged faults! I presume most people just brush it off.

It is obviously more than just a bit of a problem, but my worry is it seems to be also getting worse! Yesterday somebody spent close to about 2 US$ in various failed attempts to get through to me this way! This may be relatively small money but to the operators of this con, this is an easy get rich quick scheme!

My particular problem is it also makes the recipient look unproffesional. For example, I rely on people calling me on my mobile for work purposes during normal business hours. Unfortunately dogs barking, TV on full blast and unprofessional phone pickups hardly sound very business like. However, I cannot convince people that the problem lies with their calling platform rather than with me! On follow ups with some of my callers they have often wrongly assumed I have been having a day off or lie-in or something like that!

From what you are saying above and from other threads I have read there has not really been a solution to this. From everything I have read, all complaints to watchdogs and regulators (e.g. OFCOM etc.) have not been very forthcoming. Is this something we just have to deal with if we want to continue having cheap options for calls etc.? I am stuck on this! A bit alarming as a lot of us rely on +447

To collate further links for future ref:
Rumor Mill (Phone Scoop)
SAYNOTO0870.COM - Calling mobiles using 18185
Vonage Forum - Hello Hello then I hear a dog barking in background????
18185 cannot ring mobiles - Page 3 - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

Seems Verizon and Vonage users are victoms too! Obviously not Finarea themselves but one of their providers!

Fascinating. I'm tempted to call some UK mobile numbers just to hear this. Funnily enough, last year I had some problems reaching a funny recording when calling from Virgin to Virgin within the UK - I have no idea what that was (it sounded like mumbling) and I reported it to VM.

Very funny I read this thread this morning.

At 14.30 my time I called on of my dutch supplies using voicetrading standard route. I called him on his dutch 06xx cell phone number.

It go answered and I could hardly hear the womon, but she said please wait I will call him. Then in the background you heared his call someone saying there is someone waiting for you. This was all done in dutch. Than after 2 minutes or so everything repeated itself.

Seems like this is the same scam as the uk mobile number but also in dutch. As voicetrading is probalby using several companies to make the call it seems as 1 provider onscrewing them playing a prerecorded message when calling a mobile number.

I have reported it to voicetrading and am waiting for an answer.

Hi guys,

I also link in this line in, I called in December and January a Australian Vodafone number and had this phenomenon too.

My call was initiated through a Betamax clone and was going to an Australian prepaid Vodafone SIM. Somebody answered the call and yelled to a person to pick up the phone, in the background the TV was on full noise and after a while the dog barked.

The question I ask my self is, how can the initiated call be hijacked if these are scam calls?

My gues is that betamax is using many ways to terminte their calls and 1 call might go through this provider the otherone through another. It seems that one of those companies is screwing us and possibly also betamax. I only seems to happen when calling a cellphone number.

That said they should have log files of calls to see who terminated their call and based on these log files they should be able to trace the origin of that call

I would not wonder if these calls are directed over The Peoples Republic of North Korea just to have the cheapest connetion :D ... or at least over Orascom ...

I just wonder how they do this hijacking, from my military time I do know it is possible to do those things but you have to be really close to the material and technical or at least know important infrastructural questions to hijack a call and to reroute it this way.

And the last question is how do they cash their income, if the reroute is spreaded over different countries with different involved companies then it's getting really interesting how they manage it.

My wild guess is one of their providers is doing this. To make it work they might only do it for say 1 out of 1000 calls. The will just get paid from the provider they are terminating this for.

But In this world companies come and go fast, there seems to be a trade market where you can buy volume for destinations at the lowest price. So in this market I can only assume that some use this scam. As they terminate the last part of the call it should be easy in a voip enviroment to setup a system where calls to a mobile numers are sent to an anserwing machine.

Because it's such a small problem I doubt that much action will be taken by providers and some of the companies they are using might allready be out of business or operate under a different name.

Also many people outside this forum don't know this problem exists, I did not before I read this articel and what luck same day I had a meesage. If i would not know better I might have dailed a wrong number and redialed to get the right person after the redial. I think it is this that many people don't care.

I am facing similar issues when dialing +42366 numbers through cheap voip providers.
Calls do not terminate to the desired number but either an arabic intercept is heard or some phone ringing and in both cases the call gets charged.

This has happened to me too, dialing Australian and French mobile phones using Vonage from the US.

We discussed it in our neck of the woods at this thread: Lay My Hat :: View topic - Phone virus help

Vonage technical support seems, frankly, less than adequate to deal with this. At least they refunded the cost of the call.

I know this thread is old but I thought I should just post the link so that other people searching for this will be able to see all the places where this has been discussed before. It's maddening...