A few years ago, while working in an alarm receiving centre, I was given a project to do which involved tracking down any 'spurious' signals that the centre was getting.

One such signal was a digi with an unknown chip number dialling to one of our receivers. After a few hours digging I managed to track it down to a site that had been cancelled off our database about 6 months earlier.

When I looked into this I found out that the digi had been programmed with an hourly test feature. It seemed that this was the root of the problem as the channels matched up. The only problem was that instead of sending a daily test signal, the digi wasnt seeing the 'kiss-off' from the receiver and was redialling instantly. Therefore the digi had been dialling about 6 times per minute for about 3 weeks.

My next task was to find out the address and to get an engineer down to disconnect the digi.

I sorted out the customers name and address and set about trying to make contact with her (I will call her Mrs Smith).

After about a week of trying I managed to find some old keyholders details. I thought that they might be able to go in and at least cut the phone line!!!!!!.

It turned out that Mrs Smith had taken the keys off them after a fall out and hadnt spoken to them since. Another dead end. We even tried sending engineers round every day at different times. Again no good. The one thing that I did find out was that Mrs Smith is in her 80's and is quite frail.

By this time the digi had been dialling for about 5 weeks non stop to a number which cost approximately 10pence per call. (You do the maths!!!). At this point I contacted BT who said that if Mrs Smith contacted them they would consider cancelling the charges!

Then one day, just before I gave up on old Mrs Smith, the phone was answered by a lady who sounded like I thought Mrs Smith would!

Mrs Smith? I asked.

Yes. came the reply, who are you?

I told her. Just as I was about to explain what I wanted and what costs would be involved if BT were to charge her (They werent) she spluttered.

Young man can you make it quick, I have an ambulance car waiting outside to take me to hospital, I am 80 you know and I am just recovering from my 3rd heart attack!!!!!!!!!! (When she said that, I nearly had my first!!!)

I was very glad at this stage that I hadnt told her how much her BT bill would be as I didnt want to be responsible for an old lady's demise!

I just arranged for an engineer to visit and left the rest to BT! Call me a coward but I just couldnt bring myself to it!

By the way the bill would have been in the 10s of thousands by the time it was sorted out. Thankfully BT credited the whole amount!

There is a lot to be said for RedCare!!!!!!

Edited January 30, 200422 yr by Andyp

BT are great.

Sometimes

Occaisionally