RLE

iTrader: (2)

Looks like I've somehow been stung by this scam.......received my phone bill this morning for over £450.00.

My ISP refuses to help and BT as per usual are happy hiding their head in the sand while paying these fraudsters my hard earned cash.

I'll be barring all international and premium rate calls tonight and will pass my complaint to ITCSS (or whatever they are called) but I really need some ideas on paying the bill. My first thoughts were to stop my direct debit and argue my case but I suspect BT will have more money than me when it comes to litigation. That said I feel really let down.............

I've been with BT for three years and pay £17.99 a month. Every quarter I'm in credit as I rarely use my landline. In fact my last bill was something like £60.00 in credit. They then appear to turn a "blind eye" and allow my account to reach £400.00 before telling me they need to adjust my direct debit repayments from £17.99 to £130.00. WTF.

I appreciate BT only provide the infrastructure but I still feel they should extend some goodwill.

Anybody had any similar experiences. To say I'm pi**ed off is an understatement.

Rob

David Lock

Sorry to read that. Could you explain what this scam actually is please?

OllyK

It sounds like he has inadvertantly downloaded a "****" dialer, and it is merrily dialing out to a permium rate number. If you don't use a standard modem at all then you are safe.

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Rob

Sorry to hear about the scam, from what I have heard BT policy is "not my problem" and they point you to a free download off their website which prevents the modem from dialling premium rate numbers.

AFAIK ICTSS can fine the company who's phone number you inadvertantly dialled and get them to pay you back, but I may be wrong.

I hope it gets sorted

Shaun

RLE

iTrader: (2)

Olly doesn't have to be this type of download. Tiscali has advised that i have Trojan dialler which can be passed on via email attachment or pop up boxes. In any case every time I have logged on to my computer (even to check my mails) my ISP dial has been dropped and reconnected without my knowledge to the premium rate numbers. Appears to be international numbers as well which BT tell me are hard to detect although once reported they can be blocked as these dont have license agreements in the UK.

Shame my Braodband still requires a BT line otherwise as stated you'd be safe (wireless connection etc) Likewise if I'd have barred international calls and premium rate numbers the modem could not have reconnected to these bogus lines. Will need to recheck the security on the PC but a bit worrying knowing everytime I log on I'm likely to incur these charges.

Guess this thread might help raise a bit of awareness if nothing else........

Thanks for the words Shaun. Will be back on to BT tonight. Not helped by the fact that their call centre typically seems to be in India or something and we appear to have a language barrier...............

dr_ming

If you have broadband, then why don't you just disconnect/unplug/remove the ordinary PSTN modem. You don't need it for the broadband connection and if it's not connected, it can't dial.

Insofar as I know, these scams cannot work with the ADSL modem, as it is effectively a point-to-point network connection.

OllyK

Sure - I was generalising, **** pop-ups are notorious for it, there are other methods of delivery, but the principal is the same.

Iain Young

I'd also invest in a good virus / internet security package if you haven't already got one, (Norton, McAfee, Panda etc). They should all eliminate this stuff from your pc and stop any more getting installed...

RLE

iTrader: (2)

No worries just didn't want people thinking I was some freak. Wouldn't have minded if I'd have seen some decent material to warrant the charges.

I still require a landline for my Broadband for some reason. Certainly something that I'm going to be looking into tonight.

Thanks for your help guys. Appreciated.

dr_ming

Yes, you require a landline for broadband, but your PSTN modem (which is the thing that is doing the rogue dialling) does NOT need to be connected to it.

dpb

ive had a couple of 10quid jobbies that definitley wont mine ...BUT that takes the biscuit ....sorry mate..( ive tried ITCSS -guess what, no answer - at least anyways i havnt got all day ..to keep dailing..)

mart360

I got stung back in the 80,s for a 450 bill dialing various bbs,s

12/75 modems are very slow!!!

if your paying 17.99 pcm, why arnt you on broadband??

dont you ever check your connection when your on???
if you click your connection, it will show your connection protocol and speed.
also click on the manual connect tab, that way you force the dial up not some **** baron...


incedentally its only 32 calls at a maximum of 12.50 per call then by oftels insistance they have to dissconect..

when i was on dial up, i could hear the connection going through, and new immidiatly if it had changed..

also i had i specific protocol for dialing so i new if i had been disconnected
my modem used to dial at a much higher speed than standard

have you as i suspect turned the modem speaker down or off??


bt sadly wil be the squre root of useless, there arquement is you placed the calls unknowingly or not... hey who knows, you may have been surfing ****..

make them a payment offer based onwhat your normal allowance was/ is if you can prove a dialler scam they may (dont hold your breath) help

Mart

Holy Ghost

hate to say this but do you have a) a firewall, b) up-to-date anti-virus & anti-spyware software, c) do you use them religiously? d) are they configured correctly? they would have stopped this happening: McAfee Security Centre is particularly good. finally e) are you able to switch to broadband? it's rogue-dialler proof.

if the answer is "no" to all of the above bar having broadband, then it's kind of your own fault for not taking precautions to safeguard your PC. harsh maybe. my advice is contact ICSTIS and lodge a complaint: they are handling hundreds of cases like this and are negotiating with telcos to get the fees waived. and arrange a staggered repayment plan with bt: they will do it for you without hesitation, bitter pill though it may be.

MattN

Mart360 - you can't get broadband for 17.99 (including lne rental). I suspect he uses the standard Bt option 1 at about 10.99 and the £7 'free' evening an weekend calls.

However BT's minimum DD is £24 so something doesn't add up.

It's not always possible to watch what's connected. I got caught out but only about £30. They can dial silently so you can be reading something (like this post ) and not notice. I'd check every now and again but only takes a couple of mins here and there to add up.

MattN

Incidently now on BB it costs the same and is worlds apart. 2 meg line for £1.20 more than dial up!

SinghSuperStud

iTrader: (2)

Hi,

if you contact me directly on 0121 236 3830 I might be able to offer some advice. Work for a telecom's company and deal with ICSTIS regularly. Might be help you avoid paying for these charges. Just mention Scoobynet as i have a terrible memory!

cheers, Jai

ScooBStu

NTL have just started doing broadband for £9.99 a month - When it was £17.99 a month you got a free standard phone line - Not sure if this is the case at £9.99 or not.

RLE

iTrader: (2)

I pay BT £17.99 per month which is purely for my calls and line rental. My ISP is Tiscali and pay them £15.99 for the Broadband (BT was more expensive at the time to have everything with them).

Updated all firewall etc and as far as I'm aware everything was in place. Sure enough found several Trojan viruses last night which I have managed to delete (a bit late I know). Must admit I've cocked up well and truly though as I noticed my dial up modem was still connected after seeing dr-ming's post. Cant remember whether I've put that in in error or whether the mrs messed about with it.

Managed to speak to someone @ BT who had some degree of sympathy and agreed to look into this. I will pay something say 50% although I still feel well and truly conned. I still think they could have seen that my monthly usuage had gone up by some 1000% and rung me to check. My god they are quick enough to ring you when they are selling their services.

If I dont get anywhere I'll be sure to ring you impreza_sports_nutter. Appreciate the offer of assistance.

quill

Hi RLE
That's a bad story.
Do you still know the phone numbers that appeared on your bill? Could you post them please.

thanks quill.

DCI Gene Hunt

It's not for me it's for.......... a friend who keeps looking at **** on the internet!..........

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

BT have to bear some responsibilty. They know your usage patterns, they could easily have contacted you before things got to this stage

And the only save way is to make sure that you don't have your old 56k modem connected to a phone line. If you must use it try and connect it only when you actually use the line, and also check the number.

Some of these programs are really clever and alter all of your settings so you don't even hear them dial. I have heard of these little programs turning on your machine during the night to dial numbers, and then shutting the machine down for the morning so that all appears as you left it

OllyK

If your machine is physically powered down rather than just in screensaver / suspend that's not going to happen. They do however change the default dial number in your modem settings and can often be activated as soon as you have logged on.

jono300

iTrader: (8)

AM using wanadoo broadband myself with the speedtouch modem, have went into internet connections and it just says number dialled " zero " take it this is okay and is there anything else apart from the obvious a/v programmes etc that I can set to prevent this happening to myself ??

any advice would certainly be very much appreciatted.

cheers

mart360

broadband is adsl, so should be unnafected, the rogue diallers use old type modems. if you dont have one installed, it cant be dialled

Mart

OllyK

ADSL does not dial a number, it's just a TCP/IP connection that's routed through to your ISP. If you're on broadband, this does not affect you.

RLE

iTrader: (2)

I'll root out the numbers mate-was quite a while ago but still have all the sh*t to hand somewhere.

BT located the source of the number-turns out it was some international premium number. Where it came from god knows..........

BT gave me the big two fingers and cut off my line when I refused to settle the outstanding balance. In the end I had to pay them on xmas eve to get reconnected. They then had the cheek to try and apply a £25.00 reconnection fee to my March 2006 bill. NO CHANCE.

I was going to issue court proceedings but in the end decided I couldn't be bothered. I'm fairly sure I'd have got something back given the documents I had proving BT were negligent but I had other things going on that occupied my time.

If it was **** it was a bloody expensive w@nk.

Sauron

Go here http://www.majorgeeks.com/ and download the following
1} Zonealarm free firewall
2} Ad-Aware se Personal spyware removal run every couple of days
3} Spywareblaster spyware blocker
4} Spybot Search & Destroy spyware remover & blocker
5} Anti Virus AVG Free edition and or Avast.
These should give some protection.
Also clean out temp files and cookies which can slow you down by using
CCleaner Slim and CleanCache 3.5 run every couple of weeks.

brumdaisy

I had this problem a year ago with BT, except my average bill was only a couple of quid above the line rental - I only used it for dial up.

Anyway, I got in touch with ICSTIS and BT - got nowhere funnily enough but sent BT a letter listing all the reasons why I wasnt going to pay and basically I would be more than happy to be disconnected. I got a few reminder bills, a few phone calls (to my mobile) then nothing.

Absolutely nothing. No bailiffs, no court action, not a sausage. Maybe one day they will catch up but at the moment I have 300 quid that I allegedly owe them, which might got make me rich but Id rather earn interest on it than give it to that useless, bone idle outfit

quill

Unfortunately this only refers to 0909967****
These 09 numbers and operators were responsible for 20% of all dialler fraud in 2004: Here's a who done it. ( and why they got away with it )
The Great Phone Call Con
Icstis had been recieving complaints as early has 1st Jan 2004.
Premium Media Communications 01/01/2004 onwards
Original Icstis Download showing Quizir SL under investigation 01/01/2004 onwards
Icstis only promised to withdraw their permission to operate after the programme.
Alun Michael in Westminster
Despite thousands of identical complaints about the same "service providers" using the same numbers, BT continued billing.
Telecom One ltd leased about 3000 numbers to their "official Spanish service providers": Premium Media Communications and Sun Telecom sl.
They were devided like this.
The Danish guy named in the programme, Morten Sondergaard Pedersen was a founder director of Telecom One in 1997.
In early 2006 he was convicted of an almost identical telecom fraud in Hamburg. He was ordered to hand the stolen money over to the court and given a probational sentence.
Why have I posted this.
A member of Parliament has recently given all this to Margaret Hodge and asked her to explain why considering the serious nature and high level of complaint was BT allowed to continue billing for this ring of companies. She has passed it on to Sir Alistair Graham (Icstis) to explain.
Now they will attempt a whitewash. I can only suggest vistims write to their members of parliament and insist on a proper investigation.
Your friend
quill.

RLE

iTrader: (2)

Interesting mate very interesting.

I'm tempted to get back on the case.