Last month I mentioned the problem my brother had with his telephone bill, it appears he got that nasty dialer on his computer. It is a problem and a lot of innocent people are being sucked in and discovering they have huge long distance charges. A good resource is Phonebusters, a webpage set up by the RCMP and provincial police.

People who have been calling to complain to Bell Canada, I don't have any information on other long distance carriers, usually don't get a whole lot of sympathy. What they tell you is a) pay up, it your problem, b) we'll give you a discount now or c) we might give you a better rate of interest. They will threaten to cut off your phone if you fail to pay.

Here is some information you can use, and this is from Phonebusters. First of all, Bell has know about the problem for 4 years or so and have decided to do nothing, that is until this past weekend, now calls to Sao Tome have been cut. You have to go through an operator to make a legitmate call. This also applies to those other problem nations as well. So what do you do? Here it is, complain to Bell and inform them that you will not pay those bogus LD charges, since you are not obligated to pay for fraud. Do not pay their offered discount. Pay the rest of your bill, that is your regular charges and legitimate LD calls. They may threaten to cut off your phone but they can't. They may disconnect your LD but so what, there's only 20+ companies that will be only too glad to take your business. May I also suggest you follow through the steps on the Phonebusters page, they are very helpful. Also there's a class action suit pending against Bell, for more information go to classactionlaw.ca, and go Active Claims and then look up Bell Canada Modem Hijacking Claim. Join the fun. Also you may want to write a letter of complaint to the CRTC and fill out a complaint. I know I've been critical of the CRTC in the past but here they may be useful.

Be vigilant, scan your computer, look out for trojan horses, spyware and all that nastiness.


Peace