Have you been a victim of the internet premium rate dial-up fraud?

gregg1

hammy_the_hammer wrote:

i'm afraid you haven't checked up on your facts . bt had an obligation to provide these lines as this is one of the not so great things about the liberation of our telephony market. to blame bt is off the mark ...you need to look at the regulator. thankfully bt have said they will act before the regulator has finished its enquiries to close the lines. i also think bt take 15 pence out of each £100

two years of letters to and from BT, Sir George Young (who is adamant this is BT's responsibility by the way), my MP and ICSTIS means I ABSOLUTELY HAVE CHECKED MY FACTS. BT may have an obligation to provide the lines but once they know the lines are being used for fraud (and in our case as I have already said they knew our scammer's details) they have a MORAL obligation to pull the plug on them. Also they have a responsibility NOT to pay them - these are criminals! If a shoplifter is caught, you don't just hand over the goods he was trying to nick - or maybe YOU would. As for BT closing the lines - horses and stable doors - does that saying ring a bell! 15p out of £100 is still a profit made from fraud- they only agreed to close the lines because of all the publicity. by the way - 15p for every £100 may not seem a lot at first glance but, do your sums! - the amount of cash involved in this scam means BT have made a huge profit - check your facts!

MDUK

suzy_g wrote:

hi this scam has just happen to my daughter, bt say they ran a premium number 70 times in 60seconds(something like that) the thing is, they have board band, but they do have one of those amstraid Email phones. we tried this premeum number on the mobile , and got a message saying welcome to the studio sorry you have not been lucky this time, does anyone know what this studio is??

sounds like one of the TV quizzes, doesn't sound like the premium rate scam somebody would have had to have dialled this.

feda16

Having worked for BT Customer Services (150), BT's philosphy on this is that BT provide the telephone line to you, what you choose to put on to that telephone line is your responsibilty and you will be liable if that cause's any damage to the line. In the event of the rougue diallers BT cannot BAR all of these because of the fact if the person (or company) that owns these numbers are not acting Illegally and BT put restrictions or bars on that number can result in damage of reputation or loss of earnings making BT liable for this, however i really do have sympathy for those caught out by this awfull scam. It works out that when these numbers where every £100 that is made bt makes about 0.20p or round about. The only thing that i can advise every one to do is place a premium rate bar (which is FREE!) on their phone and to download the modem protection that is on offer from BT. In an earlier post someone had said that they are on Broadband but they think the computer had tried dialing out, have you checked to make sure you modem is turned off? if not the modem is still active and will try usb, DSL cables etc to make a dialling out connection.

gregg1

feda16 wrote:

Having worked for BT Customer Services (150), BT's philosphy on this is that BT provide the telephone line to you, what you choose to put on to that telephone line is your responsibilty and you will be liable if that cause's any damage to the line. In the event of the rougue diallers BT cannot BAR all of these because of the fact if the person (or company) that owns these numbers are not acting Illegally and BT put restrictions or bars on that number can result in damage of reputation or loss of earnings making BT liable for this, however i really do have sympathy for those caught out by this awfull scam. It works out that when these numbers where every £100 that is made bt makes about 0.20p or round about. The only thing that i can advise every one to do is place a premium rate bar (which is FREE!) on their phone and to download the modem protection that is on offer from BT. In an earlier post someone had said that they are on Broadband but they think the computer had tried dialing out, have you checked to make sure you modem is turned off? if not the modem is still active and will try usb, DSL cables etc to make a dialling out connection.

you have just confirmed my point - for "BT's philosophy" read "BT will do all it can to assist in shifting the blame for this fiasco onto everyone and anyone rather than own up to its own mismanagment of its lines". When you rent out a property, ultimately, you are still responsible for what happens to that property. I do appreciate that you have sympathy with the victims and thank you for that but you say that what people choose to put on their phone lines is their responsibility. These people did not "choose" to put these scammers on line. As soon as BT and ICSTIS knew about this fraud they should have closed down that particular line (and I know they can't close them all down but if they know that particular number is under investigation then they should close them down till that investigation is complete). This failed to happen in my case - I was ripped off a good few months after ICSTIS had decided to investigate the number concerned. That is what smarts a bit! Hope you understand my anger but do think that most folk would feel the same at losing so much money.