NTL line hacked into

howlinwlf

My son and his friends are students in a rented house in Leeds. There is no BT line so they signed up with NTL for a broadband, TV phone package. They rarely use the phone as they have mobiles. Last quarter a huge bill arrived with lots of strange numbers called including many overseas calls. NTL said someone else must have used the phone from the house and charged a fee to install call barring. This has not solved the problem as they have another huge bill this quarter and have picked up the phone on hearing several times to hear someone dialling ( there is only one phone in the house)
Has anyone else had this experience and knows how it can happen? NTL are still insisting that the calls are being made from the house.

fabbers

Do any of their computers have modems in them? If so they could be infected with trojans or diallers that automatically call premium rate numbers hence making the perpetrators lots of money,

These kind of viruses can be easily picked up from visiting sites with questionable content (so i hear anyway) which is all students do these days isn't it?

Tell him to make sure none of the pc's are connected via telephone cables and then virus check all the computers/ run spyware detectors etc.

utilitybroker

Good free spyware service here: http://www.ewido.net/en/

Also it might be worth their while getting call barring.

BexTech

When we had a Birmingham Cable landline, I noticed when I picked up the phone that someone was on the line to sex lines abroad, I spoke to the other person who said they had just moved in and found the phone working, so thought they'd run up the bill.

I called Birmingham Cable and they sent someone straight out, what they found was when they connected my house up at the cabinet, the engineer hadn't disconnected the line from not only the person I was able to speak to, but also another house!

I didn't have to pay the phone bill, but I was still sent it and they had run around £1,600 up on it.

hammy_the_hammer

if they have call barring it wouldn't matter where the line was hacked into as the barring would be on the 'exchange' equipment not the actual telephone. is the barring permanent or removable by pin ?

howlinwlf

They use a pin number to bar calls and to reinstate calls out.

howlinwlf

They are not using dial up for internet, they have broadband using a cable router.

Heinz

howlinwlf wrote:

They are not using dial up for internet, they have broadband using a cable router.

Yes, but is the 'telephone' line ALSO connected - that's the way that rougue diallers work.

mdean

I would ask the guys at http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/index.php there are some ntl staff who answer questions there

hammy_the_hammer

howlinwlf wrote:

They use a pin number to bar calls and to reinstate calls out.

a possibility then is a 'rogue' student

stiffnuts69

hammy_the_hammer wrote:

a possibility then is a 'rogue' student

here here my thoughts exactly