Timo Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Office telephone bill has seen a large increase in calls to one particular mobile phone. £79 last month £69 month before that. The user thinks they are being cute by calling the number for 6/7 minutes hanging up and ringing back again. ie the call charges appear small, however the frequency of the number appearing on my bill increases and makes it easier to spot. I have called the number and can only confirm that the answerer is male, possibly the boyfriend of a female member of staff. As no one will own up I need to know if anyone has any ideas as to how to trace the owner of a mobile phone. If I get a name it might help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMS Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Dependent upon the sophistication of your phone system you may be able to receive itemised billing for each individual extension. Try speaking to BT to see what they suggest but this may end up costing you more than you'd save. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Westy Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 I suppose it's highly illegal to sift through personnel records for the number as an emergency contact, or to go into people's own PCs to search for the number saved there somewhere? Or to demand that all staff show you the address books stored in their own mobile phones (no advance warning, obviously). Do your phones have a last number redial facility? Depending on size of office, you could get some office vigilantes to keep an eye out for people spending a long time on the phone in a kind of non-work related manner, and go round at the end of the day pressing last number redial on all the phones and see who they ring? Can you block access to that phone number on your system? That's bound to be something that BT/your provider can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samcooke Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Should've been sneakier, dude, now the staff and phone owner know you're on to them you don't stand much of a chance really. A google search is the best the internet can do for you. My favourite management technique to get secrets out of staff is to find the weakest person and pick on them relentlessly until they give something away. A long term solution is to never employ women, ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 A long term solution is to never employ women, ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 You could install a call logging system (assuming your switchboard can support one) so you can see what numbers each extension is calling and for how long but as said before it will cost more than the £10 a month the caller is costing you At my last company we had a contract programmer start ringing the Czech Republic 2-3 times a day as his girlfriend lived there, call logging found it out and his contract was terminated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timo Posted July 18, 2003 Author Share Posted July 18, 2003 i have a small office with seven extensions and have spoken to BT who can only call bar all mobile phone numbers so thats no use. regarding call monitoring individual extensions, we are a firm of surveyors with people coming and going all day. it would be very easy to use someone elses extension. Having said all that i have narrowed the potential culprit down to one person by matching the times of the calls to the surveyors diaries and the holiday rota. i have confronted this person who denies all knowledge of the calls. I need a way of proving the link. ie does her boyfriend own the phone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Hmmm, tricky that as I'm sure the mobile operator won't give out that information..... I suppose if you were feeling really devious you could text him with a message from 'her' asking him to call her at the office urgently and then see if her phone rings but otherwise I can't think how to prove it short of employing a private investigator - they can find out an astonishing amount of info about someone but I'm unsure if this would include a mobile phone number Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samcooke Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Ideas: 1. Find out the name of said person's partner then ring the number from somewhere other than your offices and say "Hi is that ..." 2. Ask to see her partner's mobile number on her phone (no warning, obviously) and then, if it's different to the number you have, you ring him on it. 3. Chinese water torture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 send her out on all the faraway/crap jobs so she's never in the office and then hope she leaves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.c Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 You could always gather all the staff together and tell them that there has been rather a lot of unreasonable phone calls, and then rely on them to curb them. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timo Posted July 18, 2003 Author Share Posted July 18, 2003 tried that. we have regular staff meetings and it was raised last month when the £79 bill came in. the £69 account is for calls made after the last meeting. she knows that I suspect that it is her but thinks i can't prove it. hey, the penny has just dropped. i'm the boss, this is my business, why am i moaning on at you lot. shes out on her ***king ass this afternoon. problem solved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.c Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 So you already tried the good cop routine David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S8ight Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 you could always post the number on here just incase someone recognises it, not that anyone would wind them up with crank calls etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samcooke Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Careful If it's not her, or even if it is and you can't prove it, she could come after you for unfair dismissal - the law's heavily in favour of the employee in these instances. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.