Scam Charges On Your Phone Bill (more)..
Folks, as I — and other members of the media — have been warning, the underground economy known generically as “hackers” and “cyber-criminals” has ramped up their efforts during this Holiday (shopping) period.
Spam e-mails containing links to bogus ID Stealing websites are flooding our Inboxes (some are aimed at our insecurities during this period of financial stress); and more “legit” websites are being poisoned; and, new variants of the fake “you have been infected” (or, “VirusX_YZ has been detected on this machine! Click here to..”) scam “warnings” have been released onto the web. Etc. Etc. Etc.
It is all about stealing your money. It has been for some time.
And these guys are good. They stole between $10 – $105 billion last year (depending on which source you read).
As a result, I have recently been swamped with calls for help from people with badly infected machines (this is why I couldn’t post, or only was able to re-post these last few days).
Today is no different. And so today all I have time to do is direct your attention to two articles which I consider to be important, and would ask my readers to read.
The first is, Shocking – 98% of Computers are Insecure, by Internet Security blogger Bill Mullins. You will find helpful advice here, and not just doom and gloom.
Also, you may be being ripped off right now, and be unaware of it, via your phone bill– as fellow blogger Rick Robinette describes here, Beware! Telephone Bill Rip-Off…
* also see his follow-up post, Are you a victim of “CRAMMING”?
I truly believe (and life experience backs me up) that awareness on the part of web surfers (us “regular Joe’s and Jane’s”) prevents a lot of this vile crime.. the “savvier” you are, the less likely you are to need to have to give me a call. Be smart. Be safe. Be aware.
Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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Tech Paul,
Thanks for the link info to my blog… I have been getting a lot of hits on this article. Apparently it is a big problem… I just hope people are watching their phone bills… Again, thank you!
Brother Blogger (Rick)
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Awareness (combined with alertness) is key, and so I am glad to be able to point my readers at the information you’ve provided. You are doing a terrific job.
Now all we have to do is get the people in power as concerned about these issues as we are….
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I have to agree with you about educating people about security. Any software can be hacked, but it’s gonan be much much harder if users know how to configure them and how to use encryption for example.
ONe thing I’d like to point is the difference between hackers and criminals thought. Hackers are not always criminals. Some don’t steal and don’t scam people, they are just curious people. The just analyze code and find holes. Criminals are the one phishing on people and selling information about accounts and other illegal stuff.
Other than that, keep up the good work to inform people about security.
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Jonathan–
I am not sure what you mean by “it’s going to be harder”.. If you mean, that if people were to keep their software properly updated/patched, and started encrypting their volumes it would be harder for malware to infect, and exploits to succeed, you’re right.
But most computer users really don’t have a clue what how PCs operate, and don’t care.
The term “hackers”, thanks mainly to the US news media, really refers to “crackers” (hackers= tweakers and super-programmers//crackers = badguys), but this is so much a part of established norm, and has been going on for so long, that nobody bothers trying to correct the usage anymore.
To differentiate the two, nowadays the terms “whitehat” (good) and “blackhat” (criminal) are used.
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Hey , here’s a way I’ve been cutting down on bills and getting rid of your phone bill all together…check this thing out .. I saw it on ctv news … you can make UNLIMITED FREE LONG DISTANCE CALLS to Canada and the US .. it’s a little usb device with a phone jack and you talk over your internet connection … I bought it actually works… I cancelled my phone service with shaw .. which was around $100 or so a month … this only cost $39 CAD and it’s good for a whole year .. after that it’s only $19 per year… You also get your own telephone number too…..This is really amazing .. finally an alternative choice to the insane prices charged by the corporate telephone companies …… I got mine at http://www.InterestingMedia.com …Enjoy :)
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If you were charged by ILD on your local phone bill for services you did not authorize ILD to bill you for, you can try contacting class action lawyers here:
http://www.classactionconnect.com/?q=node/733
You can also share your ILD phone bill story with other consumers here:
http://classactionconnect.com/consumer-complaints/ild-teleservices-inc-telephone-bill-complaints-unauthorized-phone-charges/
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