' Bugging the phone and computer.'

[llizzie]

Sorry, this is long, but I need to explain the situation, which actually is quite interesting to those who have had the same problem, and a warning for those who have not. For years now - 11 since my DH passed away - I have had constant interference on the phone and the computer has been impossible most of the time. I have had a computer since 2005. When my DH died I started getting endless phone calls from cold callers - always the 'get you out of debt' kind. I was not in debt, although no life assurance. My daughter gave me a guardian phone about four years ago when they came out. It worked, except that it was almost impossible to speak to people for more than a few minutes because of the crackling. I would move about the house trying to find a place to speak without interference. It also meant that when the phone rang I heard it and got up each time (I am disabled) and stood by the guardian extension waiting to see if the caller continued. I hardly ever use the phone, so only family.
The computer was a misery too. I was constantly calling in the engineer for help. It got worse when I had a smart TV, and I still cannot access the catch up boxes. I had to try three times whenever I went into a site. I got the turned down page and the dinosaur every time I tried. Grocery shopping was a misery, because every five minutes I had to sign in again, and the popups in the bottom right corner were constant, no matter how I tried to stop them. The engineer blamed the phone line, because when I had the first one in 2005 my SIL ran the line from the front door to the study, over the top of the walls. The engineer said I had to get a new line directly into the study. I did explore that possiblity.

I had BT phone line and talktalk computer and aol. I could not get a straight answer from either. In fact, when talk talk this year were advertising fibre optics, I contacted them online to have this, but they said ''it is not possible at t he moment''. BT engineer admitted there was a fault somewhere, but that was all. No one offered to explore further.
It was so bad, and so worrying, especially as it was taking me 2 or 3 hours to order the shopping online, that when Plusnet advertised in September I signed up for it. On September 22 BT stopped the line. I WAS STILL RECEIVING INCOMING CALLS although I could not dial out. When my helper came and set up the new router and connected plusnet, ALL MY PROBLEMS DISAPPEARED. I have had no lost connections and absolutely no interference on the phone or the computer, that it takes hardly 30 minutes to place an order. Not once has there been any crackling or interference on the phone, BUT THE CREEPIEST is that now I no longer hear the phone ringing from the study to the bedroom: I only hear those calls put through for those who know about the guardian message. The disability living extension was built in 2001. I have had problems with the neighbour from before that. In the wet room there is what looks like and electricity plate. When I had a new xpelair installed in the wet room about 4 years ago, I asked the electrician if it was connected to the xpelair light/ventilation and he said it was not. The computer engineer said that it was not connected with the telephone. Now I am wondering what it is, and whether it has anything to do with the fact that I no longer hear the phone ring in the study. I am pleased about that because I do not have to keep getting up, but the phone was ringing so often I cancelled calls on the extension, sometimes 20 a week because the memory was full, and I still do not know why my phone rang even though it was cut off by BT at midnight on 22/9.2020.

I should be relieved, but now I wonder why, because there has certainly been a change for the better, but wonder how long it will last.

BT cut the phone off at midnight and talk talk was disconnected at my request and I changed servers my life was intolerable. Why was I still receiving phone calls? 22/9 will be etched on my mind forever. How is it possible that I was receiving phone calls when the line was disconnected?

It might not have been actually disconnected. Once when we sold and moved houses, I had called and scheduled the phone to be disconnected in the sold house. Two months later, the phone company sent me a bill for calls that had supposedly occurred after we had moved out. I refused to pay as the phone should have been disconnected at that point. They acknowledged that the computer showed the line was supposed to be disconnected on that date, but argued that I’d kept using the phone so should pay. I sent them copies of my plane tickets and passport stamp proving I was 3,000 miles away and could not have used the phone in the sold house. I told them to send the bill to the house because it was obviously the buyers who’d used the phone, not me. And I wasn’t going to pay for a phone they’d left connected when they had on record that it should have been disconnected.

BR must have left an incoming line only even if they were supposed to have cancelled it. Whether by accident or design we don’t know.

The cables and router were old and broken causing dropped connections and slow router speeds. Easily explainable.

Everything improved once your new provider came along. Good.

The handset you had in the bedroom was presumably not the same make as the one in the other room and they didn’t speak to each other the way a set of phones or ones you pair up together work. Mine is like that. If I’m upstairs and the answer machine phone downstairs picks up a call and I answer the phone upstairs a few seconds later the downstairs phone keeps taking our conversation. They don’t interact. That would be why you used to get calls all the time. Presumably if you want to get the both phones to act together as one you should buy another handset and pair it up with the one with the call blocker - if that phone allows you to add handsets. You’d have to check. And unplug and put your old other phone away in a cupboard or bin it.

The plate in the wet room is not likely to have anything phone related in it. The tradesman assured you if that so that’s fine. Is it in the wall or the floor? Either could still mean it’s part of the waste water system. Drains and access to pipes hidden in walls etc. You could ask the company who fitted the wet room what it is. Email them a photo of it?

What is it about your life that makes you think you’re so special someone would want to bug you? Do you hold state secrets? Were you or DH a spy? Were you involved in anything the media would be interested in, were either of you involved in drug dealing or any other type of crime which the police could hope to get evidence in you by bugging your home? If not it’s unlikely anyone would bug you. What would they gain from it? A preview of your shopping list or a boring conversation with a relative about the weather? That’s what they’d get if they bugged me! Hardly worth the effort or expense.

I don’t know about your neighbour dispute but surely you would know if he’d been in your house? He’d need in to plant a bug. You can hire people to come out and check your property for listening devices. No idea of costs but if it puts your mind at ease it might be worth it.

BT. Not BR

This takes me back to working in technical support.

OP, I think you have confabulated lots of separate, unconnected issues.

I doubt you're being bugged.

The bit that stood out for me in the OP is the popups that she kept seeing:

"Grocery shopping was a misery, because every five minutes I had to sign in again, and the popups in the bottom right corner were constant, no matter how I tried to stop them"

Did switching providers to PlusNet stop that issue as well? If not, then constant popups can be an indication of spyware.

Did switching providers to PlusNet stop that issue as well? If not, then constant popups can be an indication of spyware.

It did indeed - immediately. It was really dramatic. There was not change of phone, lines, computer, nothing like that at all. Everything was the same except I had a new supplier. The plate elieza referred to looks like it might be a phone jack. It has nothing to do with the water, is nowhere near the electric fitting. It is on the wall about 15" from the ceiling. I always thought it was something to do with the xpelair, but now, since I stopped hearing the phone ringing in the Study from the bedroom, I am not so sure. I have had the guardian phone for 5/6 years. For those who do not know, the phone rings at the main phone, and begins: 'calls to this phone are monitored'. Most callers hang up. Those who listen to the recording and try their luck, press the appropriate button and it comes through on the guardian extension and I decide whether to speak to them or not.
So you see, every time the phone rang I would get up in case it went through.(I am disabled so that added to the stress). That has been the norm for years. Suddenly, on 22/9 I stopped hearing the phone ring, and just heard it ring on the two guardian extensions. It has been a revelation, until suddenly this week it occurred to me that I could no longer hear the phone ringing in the study from the bedroom. (it is more comfortable on the bed with legs outstretched because I cannot sit in a chair for long) and the TV is in there.

So now I am wondering how I could hear the phone ring, when now, I cannot. I can only hear the extension. There has not been a single crackle on the phone. For the first time in years I have been able to hold a conversation with my DC without having to hang up. That is amazing. Nothing else has been replaced: all the phones are the same. All that happened was a change of provider. When my carer came in he could not believe his eyes. He has been coming for 20 months and knows the problems, so it is not just me. When I needed help and phoned, we could not talk for long. He plugged in the new router and all the misery ended. We were both ecstatic, it was that amazing. We used to joke about the 'little man in the cavity wall pulling the wires'!!! I would not post here and make a fool of myself if it was just me, but not only the carer, but my DCs are surprised because there is suddenly no interference. Imagine being able to talk to them for 30 minutes instead of 3. Almost all correspondence was online. Now, because of the difference to the computer, I can do that more easily too. When I think of the length of time it took me to go into facebook.........
Now I am wondering where the sound of the phone ringing was coming from, and 95% of the calls were never put through. I have been having to delete hundreds of calls a month. The only thing I can think of is that I had a 'party line' with someone else, that my phone was connected to someone else's who also had BT and the manhole outside where the cables are connected by BT only serves the last three houses. I have seen men working in that manhole several times in the past 20 years. I can hardly go and ask, but if I had known changing service provider would end all that misery I would have changed long ago.

The reason why I might think my neighbour's phone was connected to mine is really irrelevant. It is the fact that the change is so dramatic which is important. I am sorry I am so long winded. Never could write 10 words when 100 will do!!
I would be eternally grateful to someone who has experienced this or can give an explanation, because so far there is none.
If anyone is experiencing similar problems, changing provider might work for them.

Is it a phone jack for an emergency pull cord system that may be required in future?

Could the phone ringer in the ext have been switched off, perhaps by accident.

It sounds like bt have given you piss poor service for fucking years and they should have fixed it years ago

So who did you contact when the line was bad and what did they do? Did you contact BT?

I contacted BT. I went on their community site to see if I could get the line changed or a new phone, but I had a problem with that as well. I printed off a lot of info from suggestions made to me and got nowhere. I am not sure when I contacted talktalk when I saw their adds for fibre broadband. Probably last year. I went online and applied and they said they could not at that time. I thought it funny then: after all, you would think they would welcome my going on a higher tariff. I was still paying BT for the telephone line. I hardly used the phone. It was such a misery trying to speak that I tried not to, so the number of calls I was billed for was not much more than the rental. Also, the computer engineer kept telling me the line was faulty and I needed a new line to the house because of the distance the wire connecting the incoming port to the study. (the study is on the same wall line as the wet room and the bedroom - a wall of 36ft with the study at the front and the bedroom at the back. I was very pleased the interference had gone until this week, for some reason, it struck me as odd that I did not hear the phone ring now before it went through to the extensions. I cannot reach the plate in the wall. All I know is that I asked the BG electrician what it was when he put in a new xpelair and he said it was nothing to do with that. I always thought it was, and would have continued to think that except now. It may be coincidence of course, and the change of internet provider has absolutely nothing to do with my not hearing the phone in the bedroom. It rings in the study when I sit here, I just cannot hear it anywhere else, nor should I, come to think of it. It could be BT, but it did not happen before the extension was built get up and wait to see. I always used to think there was a logical explanation for anything that happened - until the other day. I just thought I might get that if I post as there are so many posters on here and knowledgeable about technology.

TrickorTreacle

It did stop the popups. I have had no trouble with them at all. They always appeared bottom right when I tried to 'see basket' or pay. They appeared even when I wanted to print something. I did not mind that so much because I could press return manually. My carer could not explain it either. My DD suggested that the online groceries were always a pain, but she must have been consoling me, because I have had not one interruption since. I do not get the 404 page, nor the dinosaur or the terrible turned down corner on a miserable face. I can go into any site first time. I suppose I should be pleased the gremlins have gone, and I was, until the light bulb came on and I thought about the phone not being so near any more. The distance from the phone to the bedroom is 36ft, with the wet room in between, and it did not occur to me as to why it sounded so loudly.

Are you or was your late DH 'political'? How did he die? What was his occupation?

So did you check if the ringer has been switched off in the extension phone?

If it’s an old phone it will have a switch on the side or underneath it. Probably ‘mute, normal and loud ring’.

There may be another thing underneath or on the side too, don’t bother with that as it’s the switch that you use if you are in an office and a switchboard is connecting you, it will have initially that don’t make sense on the switch. It is not applicable.

Re fibre, the reason they couldn’t connect you when you wanted is likely because the fibre cables hadn’t been laid yet. Either in the street or at the switch gear. They would absolutely take your money as soon as they could. That will be the reason you had to wait.

As your carer if he can see into the jack in the wet room. Who fitted the wet room for you? Ask them? You could get your carer to take a photo of the jack and post on here and we can see what we think?