Merlin Legend PBX Telephone System Phantom Ringing

[Holly at PSI]

I work for a small medical transcription company. We have a Merlin Legend PBX Telephone System. A few months ago, we started to get what we call "Phantom Ringing" or "Phantom Calls" coming into the main console. What happens is, the phone will ring either just one or two times and will stop. If it is picked up right as it rings, there is nothing on the line. The pattern is one call at a time, with multiple calls occurring one after the other over a period of time several different times a day. As an example, on one day we had 14 of these calls between 11:27 a.m. and 11:35 a..m., then from 2:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. we had 11. It seems that we have at least four episodes of these calls during the course of every given day, with times and numbers varying. We have twenty lines coming in over a T-1 circuit, with both local business lines and toll free numbers. Some of these lines go directly into our dictation equipment. We do not recall that the start of this annoyance coinsided with any changes we made in our phone system or service. Nothing shows up on caller ID. We have had the phone company check the circuit. They have also monitored the circuit to see if they could "trap" these calls. We have also had an independent telephone vendor check the system. One party thought that perhaps someone was trying to hack into our system. Other than that, no one has any answers. Has anyone out there experienced anything like this or does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[julyinin]

You have had the phone company check the circuit and they have also monitored the circuit to see if they could "trap" these calls... but nothing found??

[ahshneptifies]

try disconnecting phones one at a time. phantom phone calls can be made by a malfunctioning unit on the interior line. A button could be stuck on one of the phones or there could be a problem on the mainboard causing a phone to dial line one for example. Abnormal voltages on the line can also cause phones to freak out.