Premium rate dialer advice

[N00N00]

Originally Posted by Stuartbe

Premium rate dialer advice


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..

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?

[Hom3r]

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

[Nikko]

Originally Posted by david.ewles

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

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

[h3adru5h]

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.

[mmmu]

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?

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Nikko

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

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). Call me paranoid, I just haven't got £300 to give to scammers

[m419]

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.

[lostandconfused]

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?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by lostandconfused

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?

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.

[m419]

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.