Collect Call From International 1

[chippowell9]

I have a telco bill charging me for a three minute collect call from a foreign country. However, the DID number telco indicates took the call has no CDR records from the PBX for the date/time of the call. In fact, NONE of the extensions on this particular PBX pegged any unknown calls at this particular date, time, and duration. I know for a fact that telco and PBX dates, times, and duration are synchronized pretty darn closely.

I have collect calls on my telco bill from time to time, and they always sync right up to corresponding telephone usage indicated by my PBX’s CDR records. However, this is the first time I’ve seen an international collect call charge (from Mexico, by the way). I hate to go to this employee’s manager with the bill without the CDR data to back it up, should the employee deny the charge.

Any thoughts on how this could have happened? Thanks, as always.

--Chip

 

[ISDNman]

Chip,

I assume the CDR does show other activity during this time period? Double check to make sure there is not a gap in the CDR data (it would not shock me if there is a gap every so often due to insufficient buffering, etc).

If you do see call from 60-30 seconds before to 60-30 after the call in question then this theory is no good.

Good luck

 

[johnpoole]

most cdr records outbound calls for billing records, are you set up for inbound? and does your switch record the clid of inbound calls?

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[chippowell9]

Thanks for the responses. Yes, there is other activity during the time in question, and yes, we track inbound calls whether the CLID is available or not. Someone on another list (

http://www.thevoicereport.com/listserv.html),

had a great theory that I'm going with for the time being: The call may have been brief enough for the CDR not to catch it. (The CDR application rejects calls under 30 seconds or so, to account for ring-no-answer, etc.) So perhaps the user accepted the collect call, told the party "hey, I'll call you later," and the CDR rejected the call because it was so short. We get billed for three minutes though, because perhaps that's the minimum for this particular collect service.

 

[srmega41]

You mentioned that the calls came from Mexico, can you provide some additional data, like the provider charging you. I have a new "provider" billing me for the exact some type of calls that do not make any sense.

The provider my bills are from is NTCS out of San Ysidro, CA.

I was thinking this was some fradulent charges, especially since the answering service cannot provide any contact info for the actual company BIG RED FLAG HERE!

Scott M.

 

[chippowell9]

The carrier listed is MCI, and I may talk to them about whether or not there is a third party behind this. This doesn't seem to be a cramming situation though, because it clearly defines the numbers that placed and received the calls. I tend to lean toward it being legitimate.

 

[srmega41]

My invoices do that as well, but I was just curious. Thanks for letting me know.

Scott M.

 

[powerflower]

johnpoole has an excellaent point... CDR data is usually outbound only. collect call is inbound and not usually logged.

M

http://www.telemarv.ca

 

[SYQUEST]

For one call I would challenge it as a wrong number and request credit.

It would be interesting to see a report of the money made by all carriers on wrong numbers! I know a few companies that disclaim 10% of the bill as wrong numbers every month.

Collect calls on DID numbers could also be a fraud indicator.

Hope this helps!

....JIM....