Someone's making LD calls...

[SteveLord]

Our director of purchasing approached me today and showed me some phone records over the past month. Someone has been calling Mexico a lot and we need to find out who.

Problem is this. He's just been using 6000 as an auth code. Apparantly, if you put in a random number, there's a good chance you'll be able to make your call regardless.

I want to know if there's a way I can produce a printout or track to see what extension has been making these calls.

Thanks as always guys.


IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[worldwidedialtone]

You could cheat and with help of Spanish speaker call the number and ask the right questions and get the name of individual making the calls.

MIKE

 

[gregdeike]

If the 6000 number is one of your spree codes you will never be able to track that person down. A wild quess would be the cleaning crew at night. Do you have a time of when the calls are going out?

 

[Nazule]

If your company has no regular business to Mexico you could just take all the Mexican Area codes to security or the extesion of someone after this information.

You would make a RLI for those area codes and have the primary choice set to the extension or outside phone number if you say wanted to send it to a cell phone etc.

I assume you have a CDR box so you could then cross reference the time of the call to security/cellphone to calls made outbound at that time and find where they placed the call from.

At the very least you have stopped the long distance calls.

Just a thought, there are probablly many easier ways.

 

[Johnthephoneguy]

Steve if you do not currently have a CDR you can make your own. It will not be fancy but it will allow you to catch where the calls are being made from. It will print the TN of the phone making the call, at that point you can just do a little detective work and find out who has access to that phone at that time.


Get you an unused pc that is compatible to run procomm (or another comm program) and has a serial port interface. Get those and you can capture this info when it is programmed. If you need help with that let us know.

JohnThePhoneGuy

"If I can't fix it, it's not broke!

 

[SteveLord]

Alright. My first thought was to ban all calls to Mexico, however the owner of the company owns realestate down there so thats out of the question.

We have a lot of hispanics working on the floor, so thats basically a huge list of possible suspects. The calls are being done during the day, with the latest ones being before 6pm, which only helps a little bit.

I have no idea what a CDR box is. But you say I can make one? I have a regular Win2k PC setup next to the the Nortel terminal (so I can view the boards without having to go up and down stairs.) Im positive it has a serial port.

Im still a newb at this and my only way of learning is through the issues as they come in and the help of the experts here. =)

So lets catch this guy.

IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[bigtee959]

Win2k will work as long as hyperterminal is installed. Connect that PC (serial port) to the SMDR/CDR port of the PBX. Once the correct baud rate and parity is set you will see calls displayed on the screen in hyperterminal. You may want to consider a CDR program for the company. I have found a very inexpensice programm Not many bell and whistles but hey it works.

http://www.commone.com/

T.

Terence Phillips
Telecommunication Specialist

 

[bigtee959]

There's even a 14 day demo.

http://www.commone.com/

Terence Phillips
Telecommunication Specialist

 

[SteveLord]

I have a list of the numbers from the phone bill here. Is there a way I can ban these numbers? They are residential.


IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[Johnthephoneguy]

Yes you can go into LD 90 and block those, it is time consuming to enter specific numbers since you are wanting to allow some of the calls for the owner.

You don't have to put in the exact numbers, but give an example of a number you want to block and the number you want the owner to still call. Then we can break it out for you.

Another way is to block all international (011) calls except for a specific COS that you can put the owners phone in.

JohnThePhoneGuy

"If I can't fix it, it's not broke!

 

[SteveLord]

Well here's an interesting development.

The found the culprit. She is actually someone here I became good friends with. I called her asking if she knew anyone on the floor that makes calls to Mexico, and she had some nervousness in her voice. So I suspected something there. Then she came up to my offce and admitted it was her making the calls. I believe her innocence in not knowing that it could be tracked just like any regular phone bill. (Shes not even close to being tech savvy.)

So now being the nice person that I am, I got to find some way to break it to the boss without giving up her name. Basically create some kind of explanation that they will buy, but make my investigation not lead to any particular people.

So...yeah...thats where I am at now. Gotta come up with some thing. I am the only one that manages the PBX here and only person thats knows anything (although very little) about it, so nobody else would be able to challenge me on that.

Oh boy...what a day.


IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[Johnthephoneguy]

Thats a tough spot to be in. If the bosses find out you were not 100% truthful it might put yourself in a worse spot, but I can understand not wanting to give someone up if they are a friend.

You have a couple of options, you can say the phone the calls have been coming from were from a phone in an area that it could have been anyone, lobby phone or empty desk, you can say you have a trace set up so that when another call is made it will give you a report of who made the call ( and explain to the girl calling that if it happens even 1 more time her name is being given up) thats probably the safest way. You cover your butt that the next time it happens you will have them for sure.

JohnThePhoneGuy

"If I can't fix it, it's not broke!

 

[SteveLord]

Yeah, tough indeed. She promised me she wouldn't make calls anymore. And to ensure that, I wanted to know how to put a ban on it so it guarantees that there won't be anymore calls to those numbers from here. (Those were relatives anyway, so nobody else would have reason to call them.)

I considered blaming it on a phone that anyone could have used. My concerns with that is...

-Finding a phone

-Some of these calls lasted up to an hour. So if the boss got really interested and said "So how could someone talk for an hour on a common phone and not be noticed by their supervisors?" then I would have a tough time explaining that to him.

And with the trace idea, I just hope the issue suddenly disappearing would be enough for them. Otherwise, they might get stingy and demand the money be paid back.

I dunno. Lot of possibilities. I'll think of somethin.

IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[bigtee959]

Yea, and hope your boss is not a subscriber.



Terence Phillips
Telecommunication Specialist

 

[SteveLord]

Subscriber to what?


IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[SteveLord]

Oh, if you meant to the boards....then NO.

Im the only one that does any kind of PBX research around here. =)


IT Admin (Meridian/PBX Newbie)
SaferTextiles Newark, NJ
Meridian Option11
Version 1411
Release 21
Issue 7+
MerMail 10.7.2

 

[GHTROUT]

If you're still on the fence about telling the boss. Tell YOUR boss (if different) before telling any other boss"

I spotted an outstanding way to deliver the news - and I mean, I have never seen better wording than this:

"Found the culprit. She is actually someone here I became good friends with. I called her asking if she knew anyone on the floor that makes calls to Mexico, and she had some nervousness in her voice. So I suspected something there. Then she came up to my offce and admitted it was her making the calls."

And hope you can add this if it is true:

... She was calling imediate family members to help, arrange, maintain life balance ("balance" the HR story that often precedes news of lousy pay raises), - stuff like that.

- if I were the boss, "I'd work with ya" ..."she seems like a nice kid" - on to the next topic (poof, issue resolved when you spoke to her - case closed)

~

http://www.GHTROUT.com/

 

[Nazule]

I tend to agree with GH on this one. Hell you can chalk it up to there being no publicized policy on long distance calls and say she is now aware of the policy and adhearing to it.

 

[johnpoole]

when this left the tech realm i was lost.. i get paid to do a job, and that's what i do.. i hope that nice lady supports you when you need a job..

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[acewarlock]

Your a hard man John!