Can I claim anything from BT?

Steve_xx

littleboo wrote: »

The point remains that you have to take responsibility for what you are responsible for.

If I leave my house, I lock the doors, whilst leaving the door open doesnt make any theft acceptable, I would be negligent and reckless if I didnt take reasonable steps to secure my property.

Rogue diallers dont just appear from nowhere, they are the result of actions ( websites visited ) and inactions ( lack of protection on the PC and call barring on the line ) by the owner. If you connect a PC to the internet and your phone line, you need to take reasonable steps to protect both those items.

You cant stop someone hacking your phone line from street, you can and should significantly reduce the risk of someone hacking your PC. The two scenarios are not equal.

Whether the two scenarios are equal or not, what happens when someone installs a rogue dialler on your pc is actually theft when it causes that pc to dial a telephone number that you, as the bill payer, have not authorised.

normanmark

Steve_xx wrote: »

Whether the two scenarios are equal or not, what happens when someone installs a rogue dialler on your pc is actually theft when it causes that pc to dial a telephone number that you, as the bill payer, have not authorised.

If the OP has the correct software installed trojan diallers wont be installed onto their pc.

Steve_xx

normanmark wrote: »

If the OP has the correct software installed trojan diallers wont be installed onto their pc.

Yes, I understand that, but the op might not have been pc savvy enough to know there was a problem in the first place.

littleboo

Steve_xx wrote: »

Whether the two scenarios are equal or not, what happens when someone installs a rogue dialler on your pc is actually theft when it causes that pc to dial a telephone number that you, as the bill payer, have not authorised.

I have never disputed the fact that it was theft. I was pointing out that your parallell between the rogue dialler and someone crimping onto a line in the street was not valid. It suggested that the victim was powerless to prevent either, which is not the case.

normanmark

Steve_xx wrote: »

Yes, I understand that, but the op might not have been pc savvy enough to know there was a problem in the first place.

I Refer to littleboo's post about having your house burgled if you dont lock the doors.

Insurance wouldnt pay up if they knew that you didnt take preventative measures to stop the incident happening. Same applies here imo.

Steve_xx

littleboo wrote: »

I have never disputed the fact that it was theft. I was pointing out that your parallell between the rogue dialler and someone crimping onto a line in the street was not valid. It suggested that the victim was powerless to prevent either, which is not the case.

The victim is powerless to stop someone crimping onto their line. The victim maybe was not savvy enough to know how to prevent the installation of the rogue dialler. The vistim would rightly expect that his pc would not be hijacked by a thief.

Steve_xx

normanmark wrote: »

I Refer to littleboo's post about having your house burgled if you dont lock the doors.

Insurance wouldnt pay up if they knew that you didnt take preventative measures to stop the incident happening. Same applies here imo.

I think that we all know that leaving a door unlocked and then expecting an insurer to cough up if our goods are taken, is unlikely.

However, there are many who do not fully understand how it is possible for a pc to be hijacked in the way that has been suggested here. Therefore, I believe that the likes of BT ought to afford a degree of sympathy when this happens to this type of customer.

normanmark

Sorry Steve but customers ignorance is not a duty care for companies to pick up the pieces.

If there was correct software in place to prevent trojan diallers from using their dial up, i'm 110% sure there would be no problem now.

Theres not enough responsibility coming from consumers these days & personally i find that quite frightening.

wantmemoney

BT are obliged under Government licence to offer the public access to the internet.

What the public do or don't do on the internet should be of no concern to BT.

The public are not responsible for the malware/virus' that are on the internet. The authors of the software and companies that put it there are.

The public are not responsible for a "rogue dialler" dialing a specific telephone number. The person who programmed that number into the software is.

Yes it is advisable to use anti-virus software. But that is primarily to protect the owners PC. It's not primarily to protect BT's billing platform from fraudulent use by third parties.

It's BT's legal responsibility to ensure the "third parties" it has the billing agreement with are not involved in fraud.

It's BTs legal responsibility to ensure their billing platform is not used to commit fraud.

normanmark

But can you not recognise the fact that if the owners PC has the correct anti-virus software on then these 'rogue' diallers wouldnt even get a chance to infiltrate the owners PC?

All very well throwing what BT are required to do by government licence (to be honest it makes me laugh, people want BT as a monopoly when it suits them, but different story for a different day) but If the owner of the PC had various precautions sorted on their PC then fair enough its something that should be investigated, However that isnt the case.

I refer to my point on leaving a door unlocked & then trying to claim theft on the insurance. It wouldnt happen, i dont see any difference in this case. Just that somethings happened & consumers dont want to accept responsibility for not having the precautions in place.