warning, be careful of phone bill crammers....

just wanted to pass along this info. we got hit with this phone scam, and i wanted to warn all my forum friends. heres how it went down for us. got our phone bill in the mail, and it was padded by 14.95. our bill hasnt changed a cent in yrs so we knew something was wrong. so, there among the many pages of misc charges, was this unregulated web service charge for 14.95. after calling the phone company, and getting nowhere, we called the number next to the charge, they referred us to yet another number, and eventually someone promised to remove it from our account. it took part of two days, tons of calling back, waitin on hold of eternal periods, and probably several years off my life, just to get this stupid 14.95 returned to me. my guess is they phished my computer, got tons of personal info, and went to town. their idea is that if they hit a hundred thousand people in a month, if only 80 thousand complain, look how much dough they just made, by phishing...
and the comsumer affairs has hundreds of complaints listed on line, about this company, yet they do nothing...
so... keep you eye on the phone bill fyi

I used to work at a place where it was part of my job to figure out how we got crammed, slammed, screwed, etc. From your description, it sounds like you have a dial up modem in your computer. Someone may have been on the Internet, got a pop-up, and clicked on it. This disconnected the Internet connection, and called some other number (900 area code, etc.) for some silliness. That is how the phone company got the payment demand.

You just have to make sure some nasty program was not loaded on your machine that will do the same thing once a month.

If you remember the name of the company on your phone bill or the phone number, put it into a search engine. Inevitably, you will get plenty of hits. There are plenty of computer geeks who love to "out" these crammers. Please do tell us who did it to you.

they use different agendas, according to consumer affairs. the company is 'the netmark group inc'
the billing agent for them is 'ILD services'
they called it 'web hosting service fee' on my bill, but other names for other poeple.
we use a wireless laptop, so they must have gotten my info from another source, like a forum, or some other group screen name info page. or i think they had a phish program on the laptop, as it had to be cleaned. and norton is crap, never picks up on anything. i hate it, but cannot get it off the lp to replace it with mcafee(which i already bought)
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/cell_phones/ild.html

you know, maybe my cell company sold us out to them....hhmmm
thats the hard part, guessing where they got my info

http://shop.ca.com/malware/internet_security_suite.aspx

This is the best in the business.

thanks for the tip. just curious, i thought i started this thread in the professionals forum. did it get moved, or am i crazy>
another scammer got me today. something is definitely going wrong. this one, a magazine subscription bill comes in the mail, well i never ordered any magazine. and i never have, in my whole life. it was 'taste of home'. they wouldnt give me an 800 number, so i searched for it myself. i am not going to use my dime, just my time. and that, i shouldnt even have to do either. wait til monday, and they will get an ear full...lol

They don't phish computers..... they phish computer users.

Bassrocker,

I think the thread got moved. I've been researching this scam for an hour now. Still have not found anyone who documented how they are doing it. There is a lot of speculation that they do it by getting you to click on a pop-up ad on the computer screen, then getting you to fill in your phone number.

I just found that billing middlemen like ILD Teleservices are billing for a lot more services than just collect phone calls these days. Here is how we handled this type of problem in the past, and I think it will still work.

Most people do not need third party billing capability on their phone, be it landline or cellular. Call you telephone business office and see what "block" options they have. Do this both with local and long distance carriers. Third party billing block is what you are really after, but you may also want to block calls to phone sex lines, etc. Can't remember if collect call blocking is a separate option, but you want that option as well. These billers like ILD typically process charges for a private pay phone operator who wants 8 dollars a minute for a collect call from Chicago to New York.

The reason I suggest this is they may have set it up as a monthly recurring charge. Just be sure than being able to accept collect calls is not a "must" for you.

You can file an online complaint to the FCC here:
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm

quote:

Originally posted by enginecapt

They don't phish computers..... they phish computer users.

Capt hit it right on the nose.. You submitted info somewhere and it got used..
I'm surprised it was moved to Misc. also., considering this is a widespread problem. Sorry your the example out there, but it happens daily to tons of innocent folk...
Too bad the government cant even keep track of peanut butter, more less help out the small biz owner..

I'm not surprised it got moved. This affects everyone, not just the professionals here.
Everybody reads the Misc. forum, but many skip the Professional fourm because they think it dosen't pertain to them.
Thanks for the heads up though, I very rarely check my phone bill charges but I will now. Chow Jim

thanks, david, for the link.
and thanks to all, for their imputs. well, the saga continues with another chapter. in the mail today, is a bill for a magazine subscription, ( supposed i requested it on the same day as the phone crap). so i called and got that cancelled.
then, i call my credit card company(funny feeling in my stomach), and i get this recording that asked for my ssn. well, i have never been asked for that from them, so i hung up. got it two more times, so i will try from a land line tomorrow. man, i feel spied on....lol

ok, so i called the credit card company and complained. well, it took a half hour to get a person, but then i figured i would play with them to get my point cross....they were not amused. my point was how do weknow we are talking to capitol one? and she replied ' because i told you 'thanks for calling capitol one', so i said, wow, thanks, i bet scammers never thought of that. i feel better now...roflmao
my point is this...... with todays tecno advancements, it is completely possible that a scammer can intercept telecommunications and pretend to be your credit card company, thus gaining all your private info. i filed a complaint with the company that they need to create a way for us to verify who they are, just like they want to verify who we are. makes sense, right??????
so i think the answer, would be to create a ten question system in which we, the user, would originally select one question for our security question. if the company asks us the wrong question, then they are the fraud company(only we know what question we selected)
even after the ustomer rep told me theynever ask for our complete ssn number, and i told her that someone asked for my complete ssn number on a recording, she still didnt get the clue, that it was a fraudulent attempt to gain my private info from a phone system scammer.

am i being paranoid, or do you all have the same fear??

Bassrocker,
I today (3-30-2007)received my phone bill with a "Web Hosting Monthly Fee" of $14.95. This charge was by "ILD Teleservices" on behalf of "The NetMark Group Inc.". Sound familiar??
Thanks for your writeup! It shows what I am in for. It's a Friday Night and all the offices are closed until Monday. Someone posted a suggestion to have the phone company reject 3rd party billings. This will be my main first try to stop this.

Get VoIP. Now. No unwanted calls. Your # not listed anywhere. A pain in the ass to call U (my local # is long distance to all ;). Valhallia, all at about $25.00 a month.