Phone number allocated by NTL

[tomaw]

Hi,

When I first took out my NTL account I was still living at home with my parents. Originally the house telephone was going to be converted to an NTL line (from BT), transfering their current number as it is a business line. As the installation was troublesome to say the least my parents decided to not convert the line and therefore I was to get my own telephone line, whilst my parents kept the BT one.

It seems that somehow during this the BT telephone number had been added to the NTL systems and was allocated to a new customer. Therefore if someone with a BT phone called they got my mum, and if an NTL customer phoned the same number they got somebody different.

All of this was about 18 months ago, and was of course resolved after a few days of BT and NTL bickering between themselves. But of course, as things do, it has happened again. I quite innocently called my mum only to find that I had been connected to a new NTL line, on the end of which there was a quite shocked man!

My parents have spoken to BT to be assured that this situation "couldn't possibly happen" and that "there is no way it could've happened before, you must be mistaken" combined with a little "are you sure you're dialing the correct number?"

My question is, who can I talk to to get the situation corrected, and ensure that it doesn't happen again anytime soon? It certainly sounds as though it is a problem with NTL thinking that the number is their's to allocate, when it does in fact still belong to BT.

Tom

Originally Posted by tomaw

Hi,

When I first took out my NTL account I was still living at home with my parents. Originally the house telephone was going to be converted to an NTL line (from BT), transfering their current number as it is a business line. As the installation was troublesome to say the least my parents decided to not convert the line and therefore I was to get my own telephone line, whilst my parents kept the BT one.

It seems that somehow during this the BT telephone number had been added to the NTL systems and was allocated to a new customer. Therefore if someone with a BT phone called they got my mum, and if an NTL customer phoned the same number they got somebody different.

All of this was about 18 months ago, and was of course resolved after a few days of BT and NTL bickering between themselves. But of course, as things do, it has happened again. I quite innocently called my mum only to find that I had been connected to a new NTL line, on the end of which there was a quite shocked man!

My parents have spoken to BT to be assured that this situation "couldn't possibly happen" and that "there is no way it could've happened before, you must be mistaken" combined with a little "are you sure you're dialing the correct number?"

My question is, who can I talk to to get the situation corrected, and ensure that it doesn't happen again anytime soon? It certainly sounds as though it is a problem with NTL thinking that the number is their's to allocate, when it does in fact still belong to BT.

Tom

These guys would probably like to hear from you. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

[Pritch]

Originally Posted by tomaw

Hi,

[trimmed for brevity]

My question is, who can I talk to to get the situation corrected, and ensure that it doesn't happen again anytime soon? It certainly sounds as though it is a problem with NTL thinking that the number is their's to allocate, when it does in fact still belong to BT.

Tom

Oh dear.

This is definately not a BT issue, if it was, then no calls would make it to your Mum's line. You'll need to speak to NTL regarding this to get rid of all traces of that number off the customer management system (which I'd guess is how it got allocated in the first place) and off the switch.

I dare say the person with the line will be in touch too, once they figure out that they aren't getting calls from anyone other than NTL customers.