BT cracks down on rogue diallers

Free software working apparently

BT is bragging that it's "winning the fight against unwanted internet diallers" following the launch of its modem protection software at the beginning of May.

In the last four weeks more than 2,000 punters a day have downloaded the free software which warns customers if their dial-up modem tries to call any numbers other than those on an "approved" list.

BT, which has received more than 80,000 complaints about internet diallers, also says it's alerted some 300 punters a day that their PCs might have been the victim of a rogue diallers - software which secretly changes computer settings so they call a premium rate phone line instead of their usual ISP number.

In the last month BT's creative boutique has also been hard at work renaming the "BT Modem Protection" software "BT Privacy Online".

BT bigwig, Gavin Patterson, said: "BT Privacy Online is giving customers the power to derail a dialler before it costs them a penny and if they are unfortunate enough to encounter an unwanted one then we are texting customers with an early warning about routes we suspect of originating dialler problems to minimise the financial impact.

"With the work we have done barring premium rate and international numbers and blocking traffic to numbers suspected of being associated with unregistered diallers at the earliest possible moment, we are showing how seriously we take this issue and how deeply committed we are to playing our part in resolving it."

Yesterday, some of the UK's top telcos including BT agreed to work together to try and stamp out those "few rotten apples" that rip-off punters with expensive phone services.

The telcos have effectively signed up to an early warning system that should help the industry spot scams and take action more swiftly against rogue operators that lure unwary punters into running up huge phone bills by calling numbers charging up to £1.50 a minute. ®

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