Premium dial-up without knowledge

[peachey]

can you give a few examples of the numbers that got dialed?

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by chambece

Unfortunatly, I know what you're saying, but I actually wonder if any of these would have helped in this instance, as the firewall will probs still let the connection be dialed, it not be recognised as a virus, an perhaps only flagged by the spyware - if it is purely a dialer, then I'd probs say there's no spyware there, certainly it'd be malware, but .....

AFAIK diallers are picked up by spybot and adaware anyway.

A paid for antivirus usually has blocking for diallers, and also some firewalls will alert you if you try to connect you to the internet with a different device.

[threadbare]

www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

claims to prevent spyware comming onto the system - it is supposed to be quite good and is free

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by threadbare

www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

claims to prevent spyware comming onto the system - it is supposed to be quite good and is free

Flippin good software... It works well against dialers !!

[chambece]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

AFAIK diallers are picked up by spybot and adaware anyway.

A paid for antivirus usually has blocking for diallers, and also some firewalls will alert you if you try to connect you to the internet with a different device.

I know a lot of them are, but a lot of the time they are the ones that will create a connection type in your DUN with no valid number - I've never actually seen one that actually will go in there that dials a 090 number - for a start it'd be UK specific...

The other thing is of course, that it's quite likely none of these were running or had been ran recently...

The other thing is that it seems strange that it should dial so many different numbers....

[ian@huth]

Maybe you could ask the guy sat near your green box with a telephone connected to it if he knows anything about the numbers. It seems strange that a computer installed dialer is using so many different numbers. I know from experience that calls have been charged on my bill that I have not made so it is possible that the calls were not made from your telephone or computer. It would be helpful if the times when these calls were made were listed on here together with the telehone numbers.

[chambece]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

Maybe you could ask the guy sat near your green box with a telephone connected to it if he knows anything about the numbers. It seems strange that a computer installed dialer is using so many different numbers. I know from experience that calls have been charged on my bill that I have not made so it is possible that the calls were not made from your telephone or computer. It would be helpful if the times when these calls were made were listed on here together with the telehone numbers.

Yeah, as I thought too - the other thing is try ringing one to see if it is indeed a modem line - has anyone in your house got a new mobile phone that can play java games or something?

[marc]

Whilst I take on your comments, and once anyone is wise to the fact that this takes place, it is easy to say you should have done this or that etc, (I probably would too!)

I guess you can only call it naivety. If you never knew or even contemplated its existence, you cannot do anything about it, as you know nothing of it, (difficult to explain, but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to get at!!)



And yes, you can say NTL have passages on their web site advising it, but again if you never knew it, you would not be looking for it to find it.



Is it too simple for them to enclose a leaflet or something in the modem box "please now disable/disconnect your old dial-up connection" - job would have been done. (By me and other people who have obviously suffered the same fate, hence there warnings on there website). - I use my computer as a fax too, so I couldn't have just unplugged it - although it goes back to naivety again, I had no reason to unplug it as I had no knowledge or wild idea this does/would happen.



I still intend to fight to the death though, if I get no result, no problem, plenty more cable companies or sky who would be more than willing to accept around £100 per month for TV/PHONE/WEB

[marc]

some of the numbers: (i dialled a few on my phone & got 'dial-up' noises)

all start 0909....
0240068, 6514746, 0240429, 6514787, 0240056, 0240288, 6514717, 0240330, 6514701, 0240308, 6514730, 0240056, 6514789
All done on the same day, costing £135.22 (plus VAT)

[danielf]

Originally Posted by marc

Whilst I take on your comments, and once anyone is wise to the fact that this takes place, it is easy to say you should have done this or that etc, (I probably would too!)

I guess you can only call it naivety. If you never knew or even contemplated its existence, you cannot do anything about it, as you know nothing of it, (difficult to explain, but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to get at!!)



And yes, you can say NTL have passages on their web site advising it, but again if you never knew it, you would not be looking for it to find it.



Is it too simple for them to enclose a leaflet or something in the modem box "please now disable/disconnect your old dial-up connection" - job would have been done. (By me and other people who have obviously suffered the same fate, hence there warnings on there website). - I use my computer as a fax too, so I couldn't have just unplugged it - although it goes back to naivety again, I had no reason to unplug it as I had no knowledge or wild idea this does/would happen.



I still intend to fight to the death though, if I get no result, no problem, plenty more cable companies or sky who would be more than willing to accept around £100 per month for TV/PHONE/WEB

I think you have a point that NTL should probably flag this danger more prominently. £400 is a lot of money... Still, I think the best you can hope for is NTL offering to reduce the bill to keep you on board. But, as others have said, you're ultimately paying the owners of the premium numbers, so I don't think you should expect much of a reduction.

[marc]

Originally Posted by Neil

It is quite a common problem, & may be worth a look at the ICSTIS website, as there are actually laws that apply to premioum rate diallers (such as each call must not amount to more than £20.00 or something like that)

Funny you should say that - All of them are less than £20.00, £19.88 is the highest, probably to avaid the laws!

5 of them were 1 min 14 secs too, even though they are different numbers.

Just downloaded spywareBlaster (month too late though eh!, shame NTL doesn't give you something similar to this on the install disc) - opened my eyes I can tell you. I have got loads of various dialers. (not counted yet, but I bet the same amount as the number of phone calls!)

After all this came to light, I downloaded various other similar software, but they didn't find the dialers

[huxleypiguk]

Originally Posted by marc

Whilst I take on your comments, and once anyone is wise to the fact that this takes place, it is easy to say you should have done this or that etc, (I probably would too!)

I guess you can only call it naivety. If you never knew or even contemplated its existence, you cannot do anything about it, as you know nothing of it, (difficult to explain, but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to get at!!)



And yes, you can say NTL have passages on their web site advising it, but again if you never knew it, you would not be looking for it to find it.



Is it too simple for them to enclose a leaflet or something in the modem box "please now disable/disconnect your old dial-up connection" - job would have been done. (By me and other people who have obviously suffered the same fate, hence there warnings on there website). - I use my computer as a fax too, so I couldn't have just unplugged it - although it goes back to naivety again, I had no reason to unplug it as I had no knowledge or wild idea this does/would happen.



I still intend to fight to the death though, if I get no result, no problem, plenty more cable companies or sky who would be more than willing to accept around £100 per month for TV/PHONE/WEB

So if your car picks up a puncture after you drive over a pack of nails, are you going to sue the tyre company because they didn't explicitly tell you that driving over nails was bad for your tyres ?

Sorry Marc, we all appriciate your frustration but ditching ntl: for a problem that is not of their making, unless they sort it out, is a bit drastic.

And one might ask what happens when your BT ADSL picks up a virues or another dialler, who will you go to then ?

These diallers are a pain in the backside but if you are sure that it is your PC that is dialling it and not a member of your family dialling a premium rate line (you should have seen how many votes appeared on my bill after I'm a Celebrity !) then you have recourse to go to ICTHIS otherwise you have just learnt an expensive lesson.

[poolking]

I'm sorry to say marc, you are deluding yourself if you think NTL are going to refund a mistake that you've made.

If it means you do cancel all of your services, that is your perogative.

You say you have listened to everyone here, but they are not giving you the answer you want to hear. Just put a line under this episode and learn from your mistake and move on and be more vigilant.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by marc

some of the numbers: (i dialled a few on my phone & got 'dial-up' noises)

all start 0909....
0240068, 6514746, 0240429, 6514787, 0240056, 0240288, 6514717, 0240330, 6514701, 0240308, 6514730, 0240056, 6514789
All done on the same day, costing £135.22 (plus VAT)

Have you actually tried dialing one of these to check its a modem.

If its not then you need to have words around your house and then potentially words with NTL.

That said you have found loads of dialers for premium rate nos on your PC so it looks to be your fault.

Protection for the future could include requiesting NTL to put a premium rate bar on your phone, will stop you calling to register to play WWTBAM though.

[Simon Rochelle]

NTL will have no responsibility here. The numbers are dialled from your computer, from software that was downloaded while you surfed the net. It is unfortunate that you need to keep the line open as a fax line and thus need your dial-up modem installed.

Your only hope is to possibly record with a govemental organisation, maybe the police that the software was illegally installed on your machine without your knowledge, if you are able to make it a crimial case against the companies that put the software there, you may be able to claim the money back somehow, other than that. The bill will stick with ntl as your property dialled them numbers, ntl mearly billed you for making them calls.