Phone scam victims unable to halt larger bills

[gem]

From The Times
October 02, 2004

Phone scam victims unable to halt larger bills

VICTIMS of internet phone scams facing large bills are now finding that their telephone companies are recouping the money by increasing their direct debits without their approval.

In some cases, more than £100 a month extra is being taken from their current accounts, and they are powerless to intervene.

The phone scams, a scandal first highlighted in Times Money, feature a rogue dialler that inserts itself into a computer, often through pop-up boxes, and diverts it from ringing its normal internet service provider. Instead, it calls international premium-rate numbers in remote countries.

Mike Claughton, a freelance writer from Ashford, Kent, found that he had fallen foul of rogue diallers in May, when BT told him that his quarterly bill had exceeded £1,000 instead of the normal £250. He believed that more than £800 was attributable to calls to premium-rate numbers made by a rogue dialler.

He queried the bill with BT and with the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (Icstis), the premium rate regulator. But while the matter was being investigated, BT increased his direct debit payments from £135 to £240 a month to recover the disputed amount. Mr Claughton found that the only way he could stop this would be to cancel the entire direct debit.

Mr Claughton and other victims of the scam, who are disappointed with Icstis’s inability to stop BT and other phone companies from chasing them for payment of disputed bills, are taking their cases to Otelo, the telecoms ombudsman.

Otelo, unlike Icstis, has the power to order phone companies to waive all, or part, of a bill if it considers it unreasonable. Otelo can be contacted on 0845 0501614 or by e-mail at enquiries@otelo.org.uk.

MARK ATHERTON

[Alphabetex]

They (the customer) can order their bank not to pay direct debits ............also BT etc. must write to the customer to say that they are going to increase the direct debit, otherwise under the direct debit guarantee the bank will have to refund the money!

So that cannot be right, it must be credit cards direct debit authority ........that on the other hand is more difficult but not impossible.

The credit card company will continue to pay unless you agree with BT or whoever it is that you are in dispute with .........of course BT won't give in .........

THE TRICK IS YOU PHONE YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY AND TELL THEM YOU LOST OR HAD YOUR CARD STOLEN.........THAT WILL FORCE THEM TO REISSUE ANOTHER CARD AND NUMBER ..........NOW IF BT TRY dd IT THEY NEED THE NEW NUMBER..........

now you to negotiate with your credit company and point out the situation and tell them that you have no intention of ever paying BT a hapenny.....and that if the credit card company pay them ..........you will NOT reimburse them..................

Believe me..... this works......................

SHOULD GIVE YOU BREATHING SPACE......... ULTIMATELY IF NEED BE: DEFAULT ON PAYING THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY.........................

Whatever you do......... do not pay these companies.......

[deezel]

I agree with the last post.

If you dispute payments of this nature with BT, can BT cut you off?

[Alphabetex]

No doubt they would freeze your outgoing calls and very possibly cut you off...........................

Though given the circumstances you could actually take BT to court ( they don't take people in this to court because they rarely win and theres the excellent chance a unfavourable precedent set for BTs disadvantage)

Now when you win your case they'd have to supply a incoming line!

But the point is a ludicrous bill for £800 to some conman in Belize or Nepal isn't on............if BT have paid them that's their loss and not the victims. ( a company makes £100 or more a second too .............surely needn't worry too much about this)

The dearest mobile and tariff would be peanuts compared to this .......not to mention my last bill to from BT was £48 for the quarter ( with their new "improvements" £6 up from the last one) and I'd only made £2 worth of calls .............. that's the additional cost of having to have a adsl line provided by our english phone pied piper conmen BT. Unfortunately I wish was in the cable district I'm forced to have a BT line. ........... Now that's choice for you!

If it was a question of having simply a phone then these the mobiles could prove to be much cheaper.
Essentially BT would be using a blackmail threat to force customers to pay a bill that should never be legal in the first place............. If everyone defaults then BT would no longer pay the setup in Nepal, Switzerland or Belize.........

Could well be them behind these anyway especially with their track record?........... the inland revenue, MI5 and special branch really ought to look into it, before another poor bailiff or debt collector just doing job gets savagely murdered.
Did you hear about a case where two bailiffs/thugs went to collect a debt and took the mans car and he then used his imobiliser to lock them in it and killed the pair of them with an automatic weapon?

The VC should given out for the man.

Hopefully sooner something like this does happen then seriously then we can expect BT to keep these inmoral tactics going.

[Conbhaill]

I agree with the last post.

If you dispute payments of this nature with BT, can BT cut you off?

Originally Posted by dee

Look to the BT code of practise on this one, pay what is not in dispute and go to the wire on the rest especially if it involves premium dialer scams since I believe there is sufficient law on the books to make a case that BT are in effect guilty of handling stolen money if they insist on collecting for these criminals. Make it clear to them that this will be mentioned in court, the chances are they wont cut you off.

[DaveL]

Is there anyone who makes their calls with another provider? People on this site seem to be hounding BT, but that is because the majority of people are with BT, is it not?

It is an industry wide problem, brought about by the lackadaisical attitude of the regulators.

[gem]

I'm with OneTel, but I've not had the problem of dialers and I'm on Broadband and I don't have a phone modem plugged in.

However, the other day I came home to see that I'd missed a call. I used 1571 and a message about Merry Christmas started. I deleted it within about 5 seconds but when I looked at my OneTel unbilled calls there was a charge (can't remember the exact amount) of over £1 but with no telephone number against it. I looked at the unbilled calls a few days later and it had been removed. I've since received the full bill and it's not on there.
The point I'm trying to make is that it implies that you COULD be charged for a call that is made to YOU (as opposed to a call made by you).

Something to think on maybe?