Friday 18 March 2011

TalkTalk and the mysterious Semantic Error when you call 1471


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As I have just spent the last half hour waiting to be put through to the TalkTalk Complaints line to report a spate of Spoof/Scam calls that we have received over the last few months.


Having got nowhere (as usual) in trying to make an official complaint, and instead being subjected (again!) to that bl**dy awful "Neon Rainbow" jingle for almost half an hour (makes your ears bleed....honestly!) I decided to call Ofcom...who told me (after listening to my concerns) that as the calls appeared to be coming from overseas, they could do nothing about them!.

I think that TalkTalk have a major security breach as the bloke on the scam call (told me he was from the Nationwide Call Centre) referred to me as "Mr Andrew", this is a mistake as Andrew is my first name, and the only other time this has happened was when I first joined TalkTalk and they sent me a welcome letter addressed to...yes, you guessed it...Mr Andrew!. The link seems quite a coincidence don't you think?

I wont go on too much, but can I just advise anyone else who experiences these calls and ends up reading this post:

A) Do NOT divulge ANY information. Ask THEM for a password.....even though they won't have one!

B) After the call don't bother to call 1471, it will say "There has been a semantic error,goodbye". Instead, call 1477 to log the call with Talk Talk as malicious (I did this). By logging the call as malicious it bypasses the "spoof" number (such as 0123456789) that these companies use to hide their real numbers, and instead the REAL number will be logged.

C) Let me know your story so we can force TalkTalk to investigate any possible sale of customers details to a third party.

If you want more info about this problem click HERE.

Have a nice day :-)

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3 comments:

Roy@NHS said...

do you know if 1477 works on other providers like BT/Sky?

djbethell said...

I've just started receiving these "semantic error" messages, but no-one is on the line, just that message when I pick up or press 1571.

It all started when I plugged in my new TT wireless box.
No problem with the old one but they sent me a new one.
Now when some friends call they go straight to the 1571 service. Sometimes my phone rings but mostly it doesn't.
Something very fishy.
Definitely only happening on TT it seems, from my googling!

Did you ever get to the bottom of the problem???

Anonymous said...

I wonder why the 1477 service to register a malicious call isn't publicised more (and I wonder what happens after to calls reported on 1477