Who you gonna call when there’s a phantom in your phone?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/08/2024 (445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pat and Marlene Guy were at home relaxing on July 28 when they received a knock on the door of their condo in Garden City.

It was Winnipeg police officers, who were conducting a wellness check after emergency services received a 911 call from the couple’s landline.

The Guys were confused — neither had called 911.

“Imagine watching TV on your couch and then you have the police banging on your door asking why you called them,” Pat Guy told the Free Press.

The next day, they received another visit from uniformed officers about a 911 call for service.

They are frustrated with the lack of action from Bell MTS to deal with the “ghost calls” problem.

The couple had been dealing with service interruptions “like a yo-yo” since July 25, when Marlene Guy heard a crackling noise on the landline. Days later, their internet and phone service cut out and returned intermittently.

She let Bell MTS know and, by Aug. 12, the company said the issue was resolved.

But not long after the supposed fix, officers again visited the condo, referencing a 911 call. They couple also received a call from an emergency-services operator who was following up.

“It’s a waste of city services to have police come to us for no reason when they should be out doing something else,” Pat Guy said. “And if we need real help, that could be a problem, too.”

Winnipeg Police Service spokesperson Const. Dani McKinnon confirmed officers conducted well-being checks at the Watson Street residence three times since late July.

McKinnon said the scenario is not particularly uncommon and similar events happen during periods of wet and stormy weather.

“WPS policy specifies that a unit will be sent to check whenever a 911 call is associated to a landline/address,” she said in an email.

The couple have lived at the condo complex since 1994. Marlene Guy says she’s reaching her wit’s end.

“The internet went out one day, and then while I was on the landline, the computer’s internet came up. When I hung up the phone the internet went down again,” she said, adding they rely on the landline to stay in touch with a family member who lives in a personal-care home.

“It’s getting really, really annoying… whatever they did when they said they fixed it was just a Band-Aid solution.”

Several Bell MTS customers have reported poor customer service and shoddy connections since a Free Press story detailed a seniors home in Osborne Village went nearly two weeks without phone lines.

In May 2022, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the federal body that regulates telephone companies, ordered Bell MTS to submit monthly reports after a series of similar stories published detailed the plight of Winnipeggers who had been dealing with service issues.

In the monthly reports, Bell MTS said phone issues were a problem long before Bell parent company BCE Inc. purchased MTS.

Pat Guy said the pre-existing issues were no excuse.

“You’d figure that Bell would have done its due diligence and went through the equipment before they accepted to take over, right?” she said.

On Friday afternoon Bell MTS spokesperson Patricia Garcia said the issue is under investigation, but provided no other details.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca