I have my internet connection to Freeserve Anytime now(Wanadoo)running 24 hrs. a day seven days a week on a regular BT line. My last bill showed 6 connections to an 0900 number at a cost of £99.376 + vat. As I am the only one who uses that line I know for a fact that no such numbers were dialled.
If this is being done some way through the internet then surely BT who dish out the 0900 numbers to their subscribers should be responsible for ensuring their subscribers are not missusing these facilities.
Has any one else had problems?
I'm sure this was in the national press.
It's some sort of clever dialer that tells the computer to ring a high premium number. The locations are offshore, the one I read about was on a remote island off the coast of Africa or something similar.
Check your dial-up number hasn't been altered, apparently that's the way it works, then get hold of BT for advice. Don't pussyfoot around with them, according to the press they've been reluctant in admitting any responsibilty.
It's better to switch your machine off until you get sorted, some people have been landed with massive bills.
Recent BBC item
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3531082.stm
Some useful programmes as Bob points out in the current CVE
Ad-Aware & AVG
An old post discussing a similar problem (Pop Up Porn)
http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=012473#000014
If you go to BT
http://www.btplc.com/News/Pressreleasesandarticles/Corporatenewsreleases/2004/nr0453.htm
you have the option to bar all premium numbers or for £1.75 (i think) your given a pin number to allow you to dial premium numbers.
option to bar all premium numbers
I don't think BT guarantee this with modem dialing for some technical reason unless things have changed recently?
they should.
a modem dials no differently to any other dialling mechanism.
europe is working on the legality of letting people run these numbers because of the high rate of fraud.
simple cure is broadband
no dialling.
my partners aunt has a 300 phone bill because of one of these dialler trojans.
that would have paid for 12 months of broadband.
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dialling like that is easy .....( you can actually write it in plain text and feed it to the modem in a command string )
the first command in the trojan is to silence the modem speaker. second command is to dial close down present connection , with no visible warning and then dial the new number.
what anoys me is that since premium numbers are usually something someone wouldn't use for very long , why doesn't bt automatically cut off a 0900 call after 1 hour , or automatically tell people that they need to register to use them , not register to bar them.
the only people gaining are bt and the crooks.
Gary
I'm only repeating what BT said about 6 months ago to a friend who had her hand bitten by a dialler.
This is BT's current Premium page
http://www.bt.com/premiumrates/
lets look at the maths
take final night of big brother voting
a legal use of premium numbers
assume bt take 5p for each call
3,500,000 calls earned bt £175,000
one night of voting .
what do they earn from the illegal use of these numbers ?
why are there new laws being created in europe and the uk ?
is bt about to be thumped ?
meanwhile bt is blocking it's isp users from viewing what it claims is illegal material on the net