http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4050805.stm

Call for action on internet scam

Users have unwittingly run up huge phone bills

Phone companies are not doing enough to warn customers about internet "rogue-dialling" scams, according to premium phone line regulator Icstis.
It has received 45,000 complaints in recent months about dial-up internet connections diverting to premium rate numbers without users' knowledge.

Phone companies refuse to pay compensation because they say calls must be paid for.

They must warn people earlier about possible fraud, Icstis said.

If my bill goes over the usual £50 a month I want to know about it straight away - I don't want to be told when it's hit £750

Without realising, a program can be downloaded which diverts internet calls via a premium phone line.

Victims often fail to notice until they receive an unusually high bill.

Icstis spokesman Rob Dwight said: "Phone companies should get in touch with their customers sooner.

"If my bill goes over the usual £50 a month I want to know about it straight away - I don't want to be told when it's hit £750."

'Call barring'

Phone companies had the systems in place to spot fraudulent activity and artificially-inflated traffic, he said.

"We alert them to the numbers that we have under investigation and they should be looking out for these numbers," he added.

Telecoms ombudsman Elizabeth France said: "Certainly I would not be surprised to find my credit card company phoning me if I do something out of the ordinary.

"So I would expect phone companies to be looking to see if they can have a similar approach."

The biggest phone company BT says it is doing what it can to monitor fraud and warn people about rogue dialling.

Its advice to customers is to use call barring if they want to prevent calls to premium lines because, under the current system, once the call has been made there's little that can be done.

'Quite a task'

Gavin Patterson, group managing director for BT Consumer, said "We do look at customer's calling patterns and we do make interventions when they are out of the ordinary.

"We're looking at the moment at whether we can improve this."

But as BT handled 180 million calls a day monitoring was "quite a task in itself", he added.

The government has ordered a review of premium line services and is likely to say Icstis should have more power to deal with rogue diallers in future.

At the moment, it cannot demand pay-outs on the behalf of customer - it can only close illegal services down.

spain has outlawed dialers for adult i believe

Thats why sexmoney has been developing and useing a direct debit systme for most of europe for a while now

almost everyone in EU has a bank account

I think Meat and Aga were after a couple of scammers on these dialers.

I may be wrong there though.

does europe have broadband? does that make dialers incapable of working?

Good questions Joe.

I wouldn't mind learning "Dialers for Dummies" , cause I really don't know that much about them.

Good questions Joe.

I wouldn't mind learning "Dialers for Dummies" , cause I really don't know that much about them. [/b][/quote]
Neither do I but I hear several people made a shitload of cash from them back in the day...

The question I have most is, was it worth it? or did it come back to haunt them?

and is it detrimental for companies to be spoiling a good possible billing solution, considering that processing is getting harder and harder....

what is gonna happen the day Visa completly pulls out of internet porn processing?

who is using different billing methods now, and if so how is it working out for you so far?

Yes and No.....

If a person is using a broadband connection (dsl, cable, whatever) and does not have a regular modem attached to their computer then No, a dialer could not work.

However, if there is an active phone modem in the computer, the user could have their preferred method (broadband) clandestinely cut off by a dialer program and could be switched to dial up without their knowledge. I am not saying any dialers are doing this at this time, but it is definitely a theoretical possibillity.

However, most of the computers that are targeted by dialers are those using just a dial up connection.

Good questions Joe.

I wouldn't mind learning "Dialers for Dummies" , cause I really don't know that much about them. [/b][/quote]
I know someone that can loan you the book!

Are there any legit business left who prefer to send EU citizens to dialers? :blink:

The UK has actually been targetting dialer scams for a few years now and as it happens, just recently prosecuted several large US/Canadian companies for illegal billing of customers phone lines.

OFTEL (telephony regulatory body in the UK) has also started working on a set of more up-to-date 'guidelines' that dialer companies should follow or risk having their UK services disallowed.