I was watching the TV show Watchdog in the UK and there is a new computer (Premium Rate Billings) scam. One lady was sent a one month bill off over £1000. and her telephone company refused to help her, she had no option but to pay the bill as the calls where from her telephone line

Watchdog has received over a hundred emails from viewers who had been billed for telephone calls they hadn't made, all together they've lost nearly £14,000.

When you log onto the internet your computer makes a phone call to your ISP (internet service provider). Yet these viewers found their computer had hung up on their existing ISP to call a premium rate phone line that could cost over £1.50 a minute.

There are two ways in which this happens:
Firstly viewers stumbled into a website which had a pop-up box that would not go away unless they clicked "yes" or "OK". When they clicked on the box the computer downloaded a program which hijacked their Internet connection and dialled a premium rate number.

Secondly, viewers went to a website which secretly downloaded and installed a program directly onto their computer. From this point on, every time they went online their computer dialled a premium rate number.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/thisweek/index4.shtml


If you have any problems of this kind, please contact Watchdog (BBC TV UK):
www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/co...ters.shtml

scififilmnerd said:

ok calm down will you.

Milty said:

Just be careful and use common sense.

Something similar just happened to my sister in law about 2 months ago. She said she just ignored a pop-up box (from an adult site, wouldn't you know it). A call appeared on her next phone bill for AUS$90, so she called Telstra (Australia's telecom) and they told her they knew of this, but that she'd have to work it out with "the company in question" herself. She was left pretty despondent and when her husband came home that night he got really mad and called Telstra too. He told them that if they are aware such things are going on it is in fact their business to stop it from happenening since it is illegal. Telstra actually agreed with him and deleted the charge from their bill.

Watch out!!!

Thank god for DSL no more phone calls to make