Hi all

I was a virgin media customer for years before someone manages to hack into my connected sipura voip modem device making it dial prem rate numbers and ran up a bill of £8000 in a matter of 3 days somehow bypassing the credit limit on my account.

I have sent an email and called vm to try and sort things out to no avail Vm have made us responsible for the bill blaming the third party device and saying I shouldn't have had a third party device on the line?

Somehow I think that vm are not telling me everything and that it could be someone inside vm that was the person who made the calls how was my credit limit bypassed?...

Simply refuse to pay it

Stuff all they can do to tou

No harm in reporting it to actionfraud either

Dx

Hi and Welcome to CAG

How do you have a credit limit with VM ?

Andy

Thanks for responce...

I have been in contact with action fraud.

... loved my vm connection and would love to get it back.

...i just wish vm would take it to court as it's been passed around different debt Agencies...

would like to get this sorted so we can get vm connected again...

Vm have a had max credit limit on my account to stop very large bills...

even the person at Vm fraud team said he did not understand how the bill could get that much without alerting me that something was happening,,

,£8000 in 3 days thats a lott!

looking at my bill its numbers is nigeria and some other numbers that the person prob owns and he calls them to make ££££

the same thing as the dialers in the dialup days but this was not a dialup modem.

it was a sipura spa-3000 a voip gateway device..

Was it a VM supplied device?

Nope it's not a vm device it was a third party device...

 

even the person at Vm fraud team said he did not understand how the bill could get that much without alerting me that something was happening,,

,£8000 in 3 days thats a lott!

 

.

Presumably you didn't record this. Read our customer services guide and implement the advice there. Then have further phone calls and see if you can get someone to say broadly the same thing – but this time recorded. Then I think you have a basis for a good case.

So was your VoIP account with VM?, Normally the VoIP modems just use the data side from your BB provider and you pay someone else for using their VoIP service.

I would have thought the bill would be from your VoIP provider?

Isn't the Spa-3000 a PSTN/LMCE/Asterisk gateway, rather than VOIP? So although connected to your network, it still uses the PSTN line to make calls.

If this was a call to Nigeria, standard VM rate is 168.51p/min. So assuming that it didn't get cut off, or it re-dialed each time it did.

3 days is 4,320 minutes.

4,320 times 168.51 is 727,963.2p or £7,279.64p

But that doesn't answer the question of how it seems to have busted through the cap that you had on the line/credit limit on the account. The only suggestion I have for that is that it wasn't properly applied by VM. So VM are going to have to swallow it.

As for being told by VM that you should not have connected it. Their standard terms & conditions do not exclude attaching your own equipment to theirs (although not replace their actual modem (which you didn't)), the only mention of it is that they will not guarantee that it will be compatible, so that's a non starter as a get out for them as well.

Isn't the Spa-3000 a PSTN/LMCE/Asterisk gateway, rather than VOIP? So although connected to your network, it still uses the PSTN line to make calls.

 

 

If this was a call to Nigeria, standard VM rate is 168.51p/min. So assuming that it didn't get cut off, or it re-dialed each time it did.

 

3 days is 4,320 minutes.

 

4,320 times 168.51 is 727,963.2p or £7,279.64p

 

 

But that doesn't answer the question of how it seems to have busted through the cap that you had on the line/credit limit on the account. The only suggestion I have for that is that it wasn't properly applied by VM. So VM are going to have to swallow it.

 

 

 

As for being told by VM that you should not have connected it. Their standard terms & conditions do not exclude attaching your own equipment to theirs (although not replace their actual modem (which you didn't)), the only mention of it is that they will not guarantee that it will be compatible, so that's a non starter as a get out for them as well.

Yes - It connects to both the router and the PSTN socket on the wall. Because calls are dialled in - Mobile to the gateway where it then dials out over the internet to permit cheap calls.

So technically it is a PSTN Gateway but also does use VOIP. Im guessing that someone hacked into the box and busied up the landline for a few days constant dialling to Nigeria of all places.

Tollfraud is a nasty thing. If they have Telnet'd into your VOIP Gateway... They can make some funky things happen!! :/

As for VM well... Difficult to say. They are technically not liable for it as was a 3rd party gateway. However you would think tthat their Tollfraud teams would have picked something up and also why didnt the credit limit kick in and bar the line?

Nigeria is classified as a high risk country - VM should do more - Have you emailed the CEO?

I knew you'd know. Thanks for the much better explanation than I could manage

Thanks fko

Dx