utter rubbish buzby.

i asked you where you were getting this rubbish from

it appears the same place as mrshed

 

I have to agree with Buzby here, and GW I do not think you are gaining any kind of credence by your rather stupid answers to valid questions.

An illegal trojan dialler does not represent in any way or form part of a legally binding ageement to purchase in the UK.

If you and buzy can't understand that you should not be giving advice on this forum

Why continue to go round in circles? Just answer the questiuons raised!

Did your PC make the calls?

I asked it last night if it had been surfing porn sites behind my back and it wouldn't tell me.

Just as you are expected to take control of your children and be responsible for them, how is it you have no responsibility to ensure your PC is similarly well-behaved?

I guess it's just got into the wrong crowd. But if BT has any suspiscion it's been involved in any criminallity it should report it to the police.

If I was a BT Shareholder, I'd be first in line to demand that you paid the bill you ran up, and suggest you take full control of a device that tried to access your phone line without your knowledge.

I would say go boil your head or see me in court.

Why should BT have to monitor each and every call you make to be sure it's legitimate and you really wanted to make the call?

There's the problem, they should do, it's called operating a billing platform.

Sorry - if you have a car, you take responsibilities for your actions whilst behinf the wheel. It's no different for a PC and a keyboard. If you don't take the precautions, you pay the price or suffer the consequence.

If the honesty of BT's billing platform relies on every computer in the UK having the most upto date virus protection then I suggest the problm lies with BT's billing platform.

Bullying unconnected third parties because of your failings (to my mind) smacks of a cop-out, and for all this 'legal sales agreement' stuff, you enter into a binding agreement when you made the call - or the machinery controlled and maintained by you did.

Bullying? It wasn't me that said give me the money or I'll cut your wires.

Telecom One had a revenue sharing agreement with their Majorcan service providers to carry the services.

Telecom One had a revenue generating agreement with BT to bill those services.

Show me this "binding agreement".

Why is that so difficult to comprehend? Should the matter come to court, your culpability would be the first to be explored, and the fact you're blaming everyone else but yourself!

Yes, why were BT so reluctant to chase the "bad debts" in court. Were they chicken. Why did they decide to sell the "debts" to NCO?

 

Buzby if you google "bad debt surcharge" with "BT" you may discover that Ofcom and the EU commission accept that BT will have problems billing the public for UK premium rate services because they have no agreement with the public concerning the services.

The only agreement that exists (if in fact there ever was one) is between the customer (me) and the "service provider" who is marketing and promoting the service.

Now that would make it rather difficult for BT in court.

goodwill,

 

I am not sure that issuing of the originals bills alone would amount to a breach of the Act. But, if BT continued to pursue customers for payment after ICSTIS closed down the lines for fraud then that may well place BT in breach of the Act.

 

What happened in your family's case? Did you pay the bill?

Hi Thermometer.

It's a long story and I will be brief. I payed the bill bar the part Iwanted to dispute. BT disconnected all out going calls and left a recorded message to their victims service desk.

My wife discovered this when she tried to check on my daughter who has MS. She panicked and paid the bill over the phone.

 

When I discovered this I decided to investigate the scale of the problem.

Some of my findings are on post#8.

I contacted the company BT had their billing agreement with (Telecom One Ltd) and "suggested" they returned the money because of the serious nature and true scale of complaint. They returned it. They didn't appear too happy to go to court.

Immediately after the cheque was cashed I sent my findings to a producer of the BBC The Money Programme. He thanked me for "unlocking" the story.

BBC NEWS | Business | The Great Phone Call Con

 

Here's a piece from Jeffrey Robinson a renowned expert on fraud and money laundering.

Neil Herron: Investigation: This man wants to hit BT with a baseball bat

 

 

Now buzby, really.

It is already well established that anyone who does not take precautions is just as culpable as if they dialled the caulls themselves...

Where are you getting it from? Who "established" it? Who told you this? Did you read it somewhere? Where? BT maybe .

 

BT is a private company. BT is solely responsible for their billing platform. It is the responsibility of BT, the service provider/carrier (they have the billing agreement with) and the regulators to ensure the billing practices and "goods or services" they intend billing for comply with existing UK consumer/criminal law.

 

Under existing law the onus of proof that a legal sales agreement and agreement to purchase has been entered into is solely on the supplier.

If BT want to claim on behalf of that supplier that the bills are legal and must be paid the onus is on BT to prove:

The customer agreed to purchase. Was the customer aware of the service?

The customer agreed that price. Did the customer see the price?

The "goods or services" actually existed and were fit for purpose. Did any of the tens of thousands of people who complained actually recieve any "internet service" that remotely complied with UK consumer law?

 

The fact members of the public may not have the most up to date virus protection does not affect their basic consumer rights.

buzby could you please explain what you mean.

I particulally interested in the "participant" part.

 

The trouble is, as a participant in the [problem], you bore a responsibility to ensure that your computer did not download the dialler, and a failure to do this left your line vulnerable.

 

thanks

The victims in this BBC program were targeted by "service providers" registered in Majorca all using numbers supplied by Telecom One limited.

All the service providers were registered by a single group of business partners and all share the same addresses and Icstis contact details.

They were responsible for 20% of all dialler related complaints in 2004.

BBC NEWS | Business | The Great Phone Call Con

 

The companies involved and numbers they used.

 

BT

had an agreement with Telecom One to bill for the services.

Telecom One

supplied the 3,500 numbers and agreed to carry the services.

 

 

( PERSONAL INFORMATION OF INDIVIDUALS REMOVED )

 

The "PERSONAL INFORMATION" was Icstis contact details for victims to contact

 

The other names and addresses were from Spanish Companies House and had been edited to hide the names

 

 

Icstis recieved numerous thousand of identical complaints from the public concerning the above service providers and numbers.

Some if not all had been under Icstis "investigation" from the 1st Jan 2004 onwards.

BT were still insisting the bills were legal and continued billing into 2005.

Who now believe they were the victim of a "[problem]"?

 

p.s. I contacted Telecom One in 2005 and suggested "considering the high level of complaint" they should return my money. They were only too pleased to.

I wish anyone involved in trying this the very best of luck in attempting to get their money back but imho you're on a hiding to nothing it doesnt stop me keeping my fingers crossed for you though

 

Thankyou, now let me try to at least convince some that they were the victims of a mass targeted premeditated criminal fraud.

In fact there is now clear evidence that BT and Icstis intentionally misled the media and victims as to the true nature and scale of the fraud.

 

I believe there are two important issues to bare in mind:

 

Standard UK consumer laws.

From HM Customs and Excise.

"Although the 'premium rate' calls originate to Spain, the service is being invoiced from British Telecom therefore standard telecomunication rules apply.

The place of supply of telecomunications services as defined in N741 12.9 is classed as being where the customer belongs. With the supplier and customer belonging in the UK, the supplier must account for VAT at the standard rate of 17.5%."

 

Did the internet services BT were billing for exist?

Can a bill for non-existant "goods and services" be regarded as a legal bill.

Were the services being legally promoted and marketed?

Does a single phone number on a bill constitute proof that a legal agreement to purchase had been entered into?

 

Standard UK criminal laws.

From the City of London police web site.

City of London Police - Economic crime department

"At what point in a fraudulent act is it considered ‘complete’?

If a fraudster causes funds to be moved out of the control of the victim, the fraud is complete, though the funds may have never been in the possession of the fraudster, and the victim secures their recovery immediately".

Did BT have any reason to suspect the services they were billing for were fraudulent?

If they didn't know they were comitting an illegal act.

If they did know or had reason to know, they were committing a criminal act.

.............................................

BT had an agreement with Telecom One to pass the money onto them as soon as the number was dialled.

This agreement has nothing to do with the public. BT could claim the fraud was 'complete' at this point but the fraud would have been committed against BT.

BT has a system inplace to identify and protect them from fraud being committed by companies like Telecom One. It's a system that identifies "Artificially Inflated Traffic". It's written into the agreement that if BT "suspects" an occurance of AIT they can withold payments.

 

This is what I was told by a director of a large UK telecom company

'A spokesman for BT said the company could not refuse to carry calls on its network unless it could be proved that a crime had been committed. "As much as BT would like to act on a mere suspicion of potential wrongdoing, unless we have very concrete evidence it is very difficult to stop calls or withhold money," he said.

 

This is absolute nonsense. BT's interconnect agreement with other carriers allows it to withhold money on any suspicion of wrongdoing. The relevant bit of the interconnect agreement is Annex E, and it can be found here: http://www.btwholesale.com/content/b...ia/nannexe.rtf

 

Personal experience is that, even when they're wrong, it takes upwards of a year to go through the process and extract monies due. Most people don't bother. Had BT used the process above in 2004, the problem would have been nipped in the bud.

As a consumer you also have to bear full responsibility for your actions, and if a court held that you did not take the appropriate steps to ensure this did not happen, no action against BT would succeed.

no, no, no, it is completely the responsibility of BT to ensure they are not in an agreement with criminals to bill for fraudulent services.

You clearly do not understand the consumer/criminal laws relating to this topic.

The only questions that really matter concerning the Proceeds of Crime Act is:

Were the services fraudulent? If yes then the bill's were not legal.

Did BT suspect or have reason to suspect the services were fraudulent? If yes then BT were guilty of serious criminal offence.

 

BT faces huge refund claim over dialling scams Independent, The (London) - Find Articles

BT faces huge refund claim over dialling scams

 

 

Independent, The (London), Mar 19, 2005 by David Prosser

BT IS FACING a county court judgment in favour of a customer who is disputing the phone giant's refusal to pay refunds to thousands of people who have lost out in "rogue dialler" scams.

Who on earth told you that rubbish?

How deep does your research go into this subject to arrive at such a bizarre conclusion?

 

I would be interested in hearing from anybody who were victims of the "rogue dialler" [problem].

thanks goodwill

Hi my family were victims of the infamous "rogue dialler" [problem] of 2004.

 

The actual case was investigated by the BBC after they were tipped off as to the organised nature and scale of the fraud.

BBC NEWS | Business | The Great Phone Call Con

 

I've been doing further research and I believe the regulators and UK premium rate industry knew or at least suspected the services BT were billing for were infact fraudulent.

 

I would be interested in hearing from anybody who were victims of the "rogue dialler" [problem].

 

thanks goodwill

hi Mike.

 

it appears that the numbers were used by a Uruguayan company

 

Do you still know the 09 premium numbers? They may be connected to the group that have recently been reported to the DTI.

 

thanks gw

hi C.A.G.,

 

a little about me. Two and half years ago my family were victims of the infamous internet "rogue dialler" [problem]. I believe thousands of families were conned into paying phone bills that were not legal in consumer or criminal law.

 

I hope to hear from other people who believe they were the victim of something slightly more serious than a "[problem]".

 

great forum