AN Ipswich business is refusing to pay for more than £170 of mystery calls it claims it never made.GBS Builders Ipswich Ltd has received two phone bills with multimedia call charges.

AN Ipswich business is refusing to pay for more than £170 of mystery calls it claims it never made.

GBS Builders Ipswich Ltd has received two phone bills with multimedia call charges.

Owner of the firm, Noel Garnham became so worried after the first bill, he even forked out for a new computer and fax machine.

BT said investigations are now underway into the matter after a November bill showed 1,095 calls lasting almost nine hours and totalling £149.58.

Mr Garnham's partner Janet Denney said that BT had told the Bramford Lane based firm that the calls were known as multi-media.

Ms Denney said BT gave her several possible explanations for the multimedia calls.

She said: "They tried to tell me that it was coming off an Amstrad e-mailing telephone. I said we didn't have one.

"Then I got a telephone call saying it was my computer. They said it either had a virus or it was its configuration."

Ms Denney said she was also told it could be her fax machine

But she said the fax machine has its own telephone number and is mainly used for receiving faxes.

Ms Denney said they were so worried they bought a new computer and a new fax machine - at a cost of around £640.

But despite replacing their computer and fax machine, a new bill received this month still showed 189 other calls, lasting a total of one hour and 43 minutes and costing £26.42.

Ms Denney said the couple were told by BT that these were again multimedia calls.

She said they have spoken with BT around ten times since November.

Paul Hayward, a spokeswoman for BT, said: "BT has thoroughly investigated this complaint, as it does with all complaints received.

"From these investigations the multimedia calls do seem to be being made from a piece of equipment connected to the telephone line, from a system for downloading emails.

"We would like to apologise if the customer feels they have been getting conflicting information from us.

"Clearly the customer wishes us to look into this issue further and we are happy to do that. Someone from BT will be contacting them as soon as possible."

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