Premium rate dialer advice
 

Premium rate dialer advice

I have decided to write this info/guide for the site as a few members have been unfortunate enough to get these programs on their computers and have been landed with huge phone bills.

Premium rate dialers or porn dialers as they are often known are small programs (usually standalone .exe files) that are downloaded to your computer from the internet. These nasty little apps are usually found on pornographic web sites and wares sites. They normally hide in the windows folders and often create a shortcut at the top of your start menu and in the startup folders. There are generally two types of dialers. The first is a standalone dialer and when run will disconnect your normal modem connection and then redial a premium rate number. The second more nasty type will change the phone number in your dial up networking settings. The next time you connect to the net you will in fact be dialing a premium rate number. This can be hard to spot unless you speak DTMFâ₠¬Ã‚¦

Keeping these nasty little programs out of your pc is easy. If you are using the internet on your pc then it is VERY important that you protect your system. You would not dream of leaving your house with the front door open and big sign above the door saying †œ please burgle me †œ but that is what you do if you go online without any protection. There are many programs that can help stop these horrible little programs getting into your computer. One is called spyware blaster and can be downloaded from www.spywareblaster.org This program will stop the active x plug-ins that are frequently used to download dialers from installing into the pc. A list of programs for security your pc system can be found here - http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=6152 A guide for keeping your computer healthy can be found here - http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=8158

If you have fallen prey to a dialer please donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t blame your phone company or ISP ! They cant tell the difference between the pc dialing a premium rate number and a user. If you have a broadband service and donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t use the modem then unplug it. If you use the modem for sending faxes then I recommend that you ask your telephone company to bar premium rate numbers as an extra safety precaution. Information on the legality of these programs and your rights as a consumer can be found on the web links bellow.

http://www.icstis.org.uk/icstis2002/default.asp

http://www.icstis.org/icstis2002/default.asp?Node=67

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

If you need any further information or assistance please donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t hesitate to post.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Funny you should mention this, I had a luser bring in his home PC this week.. it had over 600 entries in the "run" registry area for a dialler.. which clogged his machine so badly that you couldn't open task manager because of the lack of memory.

It's already listed in one of the forum links that Stu gave.. but AdAware got rid of the dialler as soon as I did a sweep, worth using that one too.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

good advice as usual stu :tu:

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Good stuff.

Just hope my client's don't read it - as I get paid to sort their pc out :)

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

You mean you don't?

Good advice there, on a fairly common problem.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

knowing stu he probably does.


beeEeeEEEeeep Squuuuuuuaaaawwwwwwwk bep bep beep BEEEEEp SqAuAuAuAuAuAwK...i can just see it now :disturbd:

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

LOL - Cant speak DTMF I am still learning :D

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Shall we just say that I really should get out more and leave it at that?

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

:LOL: Nope... I like it in front of the computer :D

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

So, Pritch, do you speak DTMF? Would bring a whole new meaning to Voice Dialling..

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Another top posting Stu.

How do you do it all then, hold down a job, Mod here, Post stuff like that, yet still managing to talk to Smegs and still carry 9 balls around.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

thanks for the advice friend

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Speak? No.

Understanding is a different matter. :cool:

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Can i just add that if you have broadband then unplug your dail-up modem from the phone line that way should you get a dialer invade your pc it wont be able dail anything so at least you won't be landed with a huge bill from that...


wander what one of these 'dailers' would do on my desktop i dont have a modem for it to dail.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

This is not good news for phone users. BT abandons scheme to block rogue diallers. :shocked:


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02...ogue_diallers/

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Actually I would blame some phone companies - they make money out of it afterall.

Is it free to block premium rate calls on NTL? I know BT offer this service and they waive their share of the profits when people are conned.

Do NTL also waive their share of the illegal profits?

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

The best way to stop dialler viruses is to get BB.:D

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Or more specifically BB that does not connect in any way to a phone line.....

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Excellent advice - I'm glad to see this here as telco companies are currently being bombarded with complaints from customers regarding diallers.


It's important to note this advice as: -

• The call has been made, regardless of whether you were aware of the dialler software accessing your line or not. You will be charged for this call as a result.
• Reporting the number to ICSTIS does NOT guarantee a refund of the money you have lost. ICSTIS can only give you the contact details of the company responsible for the dialler in order to request a refund. ICSTIS are trying to improve their powers to prevent this type of problem however it is very difficult due to the fact the most dialler companies are located outside of the UK such as Tuvalu etc...
• ntl: as well as all other telco's are legally obligated to pay the cost of the call, regardless of whether you dispute this or not. Naturally, the phone company will then recoup this money from the phone line user via your bill. There is currently no way to differentiate calls made to a voice line or via a dialler.
• Telco companies are not responsible for the effectiveness of your computer security. It is important for you to research into protecting yourselves from internet risks. Basic requirements would be an adequate virus checker, firewall and spyware detection software.

It is agreed that "rogue" premium rate diallers are a nuisance and need to be stopped, however this is not within the telephone companies remit.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

I wonder if it is possible to block the dialer softwares from the ISP or the gateway itself.
Just like premium e-mails where a virus is blocked or removed from going to a customer's e-mail.This,hopefully,solves the problem! dont u think so?

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

If you have BB through ADSL and only connect your ADSL router/modem to the BT line (and disconnect your analogue modem) then again you're safe. :)

I have mine disconnected and only reconnect it to send faxes. On top of that I have BT block all premium calls from their line (and bulldog ALL calls from their line). :D Call me paranoid, I just haven't got £300 to give to scammers :(

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

You could get the NTL retentions team to offer free call baring of premium rate and operator services numbers by saying you are switching to Bulldog as Bulldog offers this service free. NTL is bound to give you free call baring from then.

BT's call baring service is crap because when you bar premium rate numbers, it also bars national,mobile,0870 and international direct dialled calls which is stupid and very outdated. And the service costs £1.75 per month. Alternatively, you can download BT's modem protection facility at www.bt.com/privacy , I used BT modem protection when I used Telewest's dial up service.

Furthermore, its not BT's,NTL's or Telewest's fault that you have to pay for this scam. When you call a premium rate number, your service provider is charged first and the service provider passes this charge onto you plus a small charge(Between 6p and 70p) depending on the type of number you are calling. If you want your money back, you could try contacting ICSTIS which deals with premium rate number misuse. Once a complaint has been raised they'll contact the operator which leases the premium rate number and the user of the premium rate number will have their revenue share privilage taken away and eventually you will be refunded.

You can't just call your service provider and say you've been scammed when you find a premium rate number as you have no proof and the service provider doesn't have much power to withhold any payments to the operator who leases the premium rate number and you should really contact ICSTIS.

There is also another con where scammers use 070 and 0871 numbers. For this type of problem you will need to contact Ofcom on 0207-981-3040 Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm. Usually, people would find a missed call on their mobiles or landline with an 070 number as it poses as a mobile number which it isn't and if you return the call, it some kind of answering service which keeps you on hold for ages whilst charging you 50p per minute. Now the 0871 number scam is a problem were people find a message on their answer machine telling them that they have missed an important phone call and tells them to call an 0871 number, when they call the 0871 number, you are placed on hold forever and you can be charged between 5p and 10p per minute from a standard BT landline.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

not sure if this is related to the above post, but a couple of weeks ago i was bombarded with about 50 calls all from different mobile numbers that i didnt recognise, when i called them back it said this number no longer exists and hung up.

has anyone else experienced this?

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Not strictly speaking as this thread is about scams where a piece of software dials a premium rate number using a modem. The premium rate number can cost the modem owner in excess of £20 a minute.

Re: Premium rate dialer advice
 

Well if the numbers started as 070 then it could have been a scam, O2 and various other networks have banned calls to certain 070 and 090 numbers due to this scam.