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Wednesday, March 07, 2012

If there's one person I'd like to hear from when I'm lying in a Lem-Sip induced coma at eleven-thirty on a weekday evening, it's probably a Brummie lawyer. But only if he's informing me that Ozzy Osbourne's dead and he's left me all his money. And sadly that hasn't happened yet.

We did, however, receive an unexpected phone call just before 11:30pm last night, which woke me up with a cough and made me think my alarm clock was going off. Within seconds I was reaching for the snooze button and telling Lisa to phone in sick for me.

She instantly picked up the phone, which made me think she was following the 'obey' line in our wedding vows for the first time in her life, but instead of an emergency distress call from her mother, all she heard was a recorded message telling her she'd dialled the wrong extension number. Which was odd, as they'd phoned us.

By this time I was wide-awake, and on the annoyed side of livid, so having blown both my nose and my top, I dialled 1471 and was informed that we'd just been called from the number 0121 314 0002. Which is in Birmingham, apparently.

I'm a trusting man, but I'll never phone someone back unless they can prove they're not based in Nigeria, so I left it there, and went back to sleep... an hour later, when I'd calmed down a bit.

This morning, I was straight on to WhoCallsMe.com, where I found five pages of messages from people who had been phoned last night from that exact same number: 01213140002. Apparently it started yesterday evening, and went right through the night. So it could have been worse. I could have been one of the dozens who was woken up between 2 and 3am, and thought they'd had a family death.

By this afternoon, the list of the angry had grown to seven pages, so I checked an alternative site: WhoPhonedMe.com. You've got to love the internet. It's a miracle anyone knew anything before the web was invented. Anyhoo, the giant gorilla on 'Who Phoned Me' thought about it for a bit, then informed me that the calls had been traced to a law firm in Birmingham, called Bridgehouse Partners. But they're accepting no responsibility.

Their website says this:

IMPORTANT NOTICE

We are aware that a number of people are complaining about our phone number calling them. This is not us doing this, we are a victim of what is called Caller ID spoofing.

Please speak to BT or your telecoms provider to see if they can trace the origin of the phone calls.

We are extremely sorry for any inconvenience and please be assured we are doing everything we can to resolve the situation.

At 3pm this afternoon they added this update:

IMPORTANT NOTICE update
15:00hrs - 7th March 2012

We have now been in contact with OFCOM & the Information Commissioners Office. We urge you to do the same please.

We have also filed a report with the Action Fraud Team a branch of the Police.

Please do not think we are being complacent in asking you to contact your service providers to report the problem, the reason we ask you to do this is because none of these calls are going through our system at any point and therefore it is very difficult for us to trace them. However they are coming through your system to you via either BT, Virgin etc. If enough people get onto these big providers they will be able to trace the calls and hopefully put a stop to it.

We continue to do everything in our power to try and rectify the situation.

Never mind OFCOM and the police, when I find the people responsible, I'm suing them for harassment. Has anyone got the number of a good lawyer..?

2 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

I certainly won't be answering the phone tonight, so if you want me you'd better shout loudly!

Jp Cheshire said...

What if there actually is a rogue lawyer at Bridgehouse Partners that is slipping back in under the cover of darkness, and in the dead of night making these calls, hoping to drum up some legal business for his new rival company  'I. D. Spoofers & Sons?
Just a thought