Tel Aviv  - It was either a case of extreme homesickness, or uncontrollable talkativeness, or possibly even both, but a Filipino caregiver in Israel managed to run up a bill amounting to thousands of dollars - on her employer's telephone.

According to the Y-net news site Thursday, the 26-year-old woman has been arrested, and has confessed to the charges.

Her employer's suspicions were aroused when he received a bill for 50,000 Israeli shekels (13,000 dollars) for telephone calls to the Philippines.

He confronted the woman, who admitted she had been making the calls and promised to pay back the money if she could keep her job.

When after two weeks she had not begun to return any of the money, and when the employer's son discovered that his father's signature had been forged on some cheques, he lodged a complaint with the police.

Based on the Israeli Bezeq telecommunications company's approximately one dollar per minute tariff for a call from Israel to the Philippines, the woman seems to have been on the phone for the equivalent of 10 continuous days.

Police are investigating whether she acted alone, or whether she invited friends to join in the talkathon.(dpa)