Trojan Horse Virus’ Send Phone Bills Soaring

Today’s Independent thinks so…

Icstis is also rather toothless [in tackling trojan horse phone bill cons]. In August, it took steps to ensure that all premium-rate dialler services would have to obtain a licence. Only this week, it said that it had banned 11 companies that had failed to apply for a licence.However, for those companies that have already managed to get away with the con for several months, Icstis’s orders to pay fines and to refund customers can easily be ignored. With most offenders based in Europe, these companies know that there is a lot of paperwork needed for Icstis to get anywhere near them.

So far, the regulator has managed to fine and get customer refunds from eight companies. However, pinning down the rest is likely to be much trickier. In fairness to Icstis, its job is to regulate, not to prosecute for fraud. This, it says, is a matter for the police, and it insists that it is working alongside the high-tech crime unit.

Unfortunately, all this does not help those already struggling to pay huge phone bills. While the likes of BT say they cannot be held responsible for the levels of security that their customers have on their computers, it could be argued that they have a duty of care to inform customers when their bills become abnormally large.

With a little luck, the new measures being put in place by Icstis and Ofcom, the telephone regulator, will ensure that these scams are eliminated. But for those of us who have already been stung, the road to compensation may be long and tiresome.”