Eircom Staff Briefed, no refunds for Porn Dialler Victims.

dahamsta

Originally posted by jd
It's a default configuration using ieak-'cept for the branding and some favourites added to the list...

The IEAK can configure everything, including setting the ActiveX handler to disabled or prompt...

Clinical Waste

Originally posted by Bond-James Bond
I have a solution.

If someone dials a Band 13 country, they get a recording from eircom advising them that the call costs €3 per minute. The caller has the option to hang up or continue with the call.

No need to give eircom €30 to bar the calls.

And the Porn-dialler will hang up?

DMC

www.eircom.ie/pricing has them too.

Short of a message saying "are you mad to ring this place??" tbh James, they can't do anymore.

Muck,

Right, say that you got your wish and Band 13 was opt in. Who is to say that pron diallers exploit Band 12 or 11 countries, as they would be the next dearest places to ring? Nowt.

My justification (if I have to) is that people have to accept their own actions. If a porn dialler gets on their PC, If they are not in full control of the PC, or cant get a way of getting this off thier PC, they have learned a valuable and expensive lesson. Opting in on Band 13 is not the answer, this, in my eyes, is no longer USO and you'd deny people who dont even have PC's to direct dial these places, should they want to. As I said above, all I want is a service that allows me to make a direct dialled call to anywhere in the world from my phone and that is what I currently have.

What would Ofcom or Oftel say to BT in this regard?

Find out and come back to me.

kthxbye.

spongebob

You are right Adam (of course) but Eircom.Net are no more negligent than any other ISP from what see. I m not aiming at them.

DMC. Their parent company, unlike BT or their incumbent peers, have chosen to use the extension of unwanted credit as a method to profit from this so I would like to focus clearly on their profiteering from the activities of Net Scum at the expense of their customers.

BT have not created a special SUPER EXPENSIVE and SUPER PREMIUM band to make extra windfall profits. Oftel has no case against them.

Add to that their loathsome practise of pointing the finger indiscriminately within families where in fairness there is no specific blame at all....in order to keep their ill gottten gains.

M

DMC

Maybe they have not branded it like eircom have as "Band 12", but its still a dear or the dearest hole to ring on a BT landline.

The fact remains that if you get a porn dialler on your PC, and it calls and you cant stop it, its still your problem.

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by Clinical Waste
And the Porn-dialler will hang up?

No but the user would still here the recording over the speakers and then hang up.

spongebob

Originally posted by DMC
I'm not standing up to eircom as regards the charges of Band 13, but I strongly believe that they, or any other phone company for that matter (you've seen BT's charges) provide a service that allows me to make a call to anywhere in the world from my phone. Your rant to Comreg is nothing less than a one-man campaign to stop denying me the freedom to dial these numbers if I wished to.

My solution is the status quo. Yes, it could be cheaper, yes, you could ask Comreg to investigate these charges, but you cant or let you deny me the right to ring Band 13 places.

:rolleyes:

:rolleyes: Ah yes, FREEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDOOOOOOMMMMM ! sez DMC. :rolleyes:

My position is simple but must evidently be spelt out for the slow learners again God !


My suggestio sez you can ring Biddy anyyYYyytime you wish and opt in to calling Band 13 and then exercise your "freedom" .

As it happens you must also get a pin for a 1590 number which costs less per minute than Band 13. Are you saying that PINS on 1590 numbers interfere with your Freedom too DMC. If not WHY not .....just to see if I can help steer you into the path of consistency like ?

The Premium Number Regulator requires that PIN be there. You "strongly believe" that you have a right to ring those countries :D . I never said that you should be denied the right, only the right NOT to be inadvertently diverted there, read my comments please and quote where I said otherwise ?

Band 13 may remain at the curent price. I did not say they should change it / reduce it ...........did I , read my comments please and quote where I said otherwise.

Did I ask Comreg to "investigate" the price itself, where? Read my comments please and quote where I said it.

No attribution without quotation in future please DMC , you have your own forum where you can do that if you wish

M

vibe666

Originally posted by Muck
Add to that their loathsome practise of pointing the finger indiscriminately within families where in fairness there is no specific blame at all....in order to keep their ill gottten gains.

Are you talking about eircom or eircom.net?

If you mean eircom.net then I happen to know for a fact that eircom.net techs are told specifically not to tell people the specifics of how these things get on their PC's, and should never say that they are specifically from visiting porn sites.

Typically what would normally be said is, that 'these things can get on to your PC by either clicking on a link or viewing an email (not necessarily pornographic) that would then most likely without the users knowledge install something that would change the number the user is dialling.'

If you were told differently than that and visiting porn sites was specifically mentioned than you may well have a case for defamation of character against the rat, as you know it's not always a case of specifically surfing to a site to end up with these things on your PC.

that said, if you did there are ways of finding out these things and you'd have to submit your PC for examination, and trust me there are things on there that not even professional software can completely remove, so you better be sure about how they did get there.

seamus

DMC, Muck, I think you may have to agree to disagree.

You could poke holes in eachother's arguments all night and get nowhere.

Both of you know better than attacking the poster instead of the argument btw.

btw Muck, I'll need clarification on this:

A special team has been put in place to deal with the inevitable billing query escalations. If woman rings this team she is told her husband or boyfriend was surfing for porn....not true in many if not most of these cases. If a man rings they blame the wife, if a couple have kids they blame the kids. etc. In actual fact it could have been installed with no user intervention like the Blaster worm but Eircom, as a matter of policy, tries to embarass the victims into paying by blaming other memeber of their household for something that THEY DID NOT DO ! Apart from the cost they often leave accusations flying about for months.

Speculation, or by official directive of managment?

DMC

My last points on this, seamus.

I never said that you suggust a reduction in the prices of Band 13 calls. That was my suggestion.

By your suggestion of opting out, you are stopping me from directing dialling that number. You want to make me ring a biddy to get it turned back on, denying me the chance to direct dial that country wihout interference from my phone company. Remember, all numbers; 15xx, 18xx local and national calls are by default available, it is for you to choose what number you want blocked.
Hell, lets return to manual exchanges and A-B coinboxes..

As for making to play on me saying freedom, I wont go that low.

No attribution without quotation in future please DMC

Sure. Name your sources to see if you are not telling us porkies. But I dont think you will. Eircom billing data is sooo vague.

spongebob

Originally posted by seamus
btw Muck, I'll need clarification on this:

There is a special team within billing to handle escalations on queries that arise from Browser Hijackings where said Hijacking results in an outdial without the customers knowledge to an international number. It may be small but it exists.

M

The Insider

So what do you expect them to do, refund the money?? If a customer comes on screaming and shouting saying they will bring Eircom to court that they demand a refund, what should they say to them, whatever way you look at it Muck, its the person's own fault for not controlling their own property correctly.

What would your alternative approach to customers demanding a refund be?

spongebob

Did I mention a refund either?

I suggested a systemic non intrusive approach, remove them all from the normal international outdial set and let the account holder opt in as they see fit, if they want one Band 13 country they get them all. !

Eircom will make its administrative overhead for an opt in back in 2 MINUTES at the rates they charge to these destinations.

The other alternative is a fraud control system but some of these systems disconnect periodically and therefore tend to stay below the radar for some Fraud Control systems, especailly a bi-monthly billing system such as the Eircom one. Fraud control systems are supposed to snoop on your traffic, that may offend Libertarianism 101 fans such as DMC even though its there to protect him. Fraud control software benefits certain users because the heuristics may spot an odd pattern in some cases but not in others. The opt in is more straightforward and far less nosey.

Business users also get billed monthly so they would be aware of the fraud sooner, a residential user could be clobbered for 60 days of dialling in a worst possible case. Waiting for your bill is twice as risky for a home user which is also unfair, can we therefore be billed monthly if we use the Internet or is that a bit too costly for Eircom .......to even out the risk of course.

It begs the question......what was the worst case you ever heard of (ex or including VAT if you remember the details ) O Inside One. The worst case I personally heard of clocked up €7000 Ex Vat in 12 days or so. Most are only €500 or €600 or so, a night out in Dublin would cost ya that


M

vibe666

14,500 odd was the worst one. said company ended up going out of business too, and the rat never lifted an all powerful finger to let them off the hook.

spongebob

Phew, coulda been double that for a residential user with the 2 month Billing cycle, imagine a €29,000 Bill and VAT on top of that €35,000

The Insider

Did I mention a refund either?

I suggested a systemic non intrusive approach, remove them all from the normal international outdial set and let the account holder opt in as they see fit, if they want one Band 13 country they get them all.

When a person rings to complain about there internet charges, they generally get put through to Eircom Net who as you know Muck have no control over the things you are suggesting, your point was that the customer service reps where misinforming the customer, and I ask you again what should the customer service people in Eicom Net say to the people who ring in and say it is the ISP's fault that they have been billed for the porn diallers? What would you suggest Eicom Net say to these people. I have only ever heard of porn diallers coming form Porn sites which is then tough s**t, or warez/crack sites which if you are on then you should now how to use you pc.

14,500 odd was the worst one. said company ended up going out of business too, and the rat never lifted an all powerful finger to let them off the hook

That was a misconfigured router not a porn dialer victim.

spongebob

Originally posted by The Insider

When a person rings to complain about there internet charges, they generally get put through to Eircom Net who as you know Muck have no control over the things you are suggesting.

This is nothing to do with Eircom.Net as I said all along.

It is an Eircom Retail issue at the Billing end and at the line service provisioning end. Eircom Retail are also responsibe for the delivery of the USO and this is a USO issue under the Control Of Costs section.

M

vengeance52

Muck,
i think its better if you didnt mention names. I use to work for eircom until recently, yes i was desperate, and i know who your talking about and i dont think they want to get into hot water by revealing info like that cos its breech of contract so it better to keep things anonymous.

Vengeance :ninja:

spongebob

I have not named names and will not divulge my 2 sources , one of whom deals with these issues regularly....nuff said there.

I suggested a resolution which would protect the unwary from some of the worse excesses of the problem by deprovisioning Band 13 through the USO with an opt in system for those who knowingly choose to contact those countries.

In other words, I said that the scale of this issue is such that the lazy regulator we have must be persuaded to regulate through the USO mechanism under the section that deals with the RIGHT to control costs. The GOOD news for the victims is that Porn dialler victims diverted to Band 13 countries will have an actionable case against Comreg themselves once the USO micro review is complete in about 3 or 4 weeks. The emails I urged you to send are hard evidence that Comreg was made aware of the issue and of how to remedy it in a Universal way . If Comreg refuse to do so then let them explain it to a judge.

M

sceptre

OK, just to interject. I've had a few reports about the whole personal abuse and attacking the poster thing. Broadly speaking, I agree with the complaints. In other words, please keep to disagreeing with the posts if you see fit to do so but under no circumstances attack the poster in a personal manner. As some people may have noticed, there are some posters on some other boards that I'd like to shake firmly and slap around the head but I do try to keep the personal "you are an idiot" type posts off-screen.

I'm not editing the posts in question (at least for the moment), tempted as I am to do so (though there's still time for anyone to edit their own posts). I do think the point has been missed in a number of posts though. I'd suggest that any new posters to this thread actually read the whole thread. Might be an idea for previous contributors to do likewise but I obviously can't force you.

Keep it civil please. Doing otherwise just makes you look silly. That's why I'm leaving the posts there untouched. We are available to anyone who wants to PM us to make a comment about /any/ thread on this board. Can't promise to do what you want done but we do listen:)

That's the mod part out of the way.

BigEejit

Originally posted by The Insider
That was a misconfigured router not a porn dialer victim.

Not nitpicking but genuinely interested: How could a router run up a phone bill? Did it have a modem attached that was ringing that number? or something else?

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by BigEejit
Not nitpicking but genuinely interested: How could a router run up a phone bill? Did it have a modem attached that was ringing that number? or something else?

If it's not set with an idle timeout they can stay connected for days. Also some routers will go online with any sort of network traffic. Alot of the time it's down to the network administration/configuration as opposed to the router itself.
btw. most if not all ISDN routers have the ability to dial out without an extra modem/device.

seamus

Yeah, you'd never know. The company may have moved a foreign office to Dublin, plugged in their router, and left the foreign ISP number on it. Unlikely, but sysadmins aren't perfect.

spongebob

If I dial an number such as 01 6624666 (its free BTW ) from a Landline in Ireland it must not have an international code in the number.

EG

016624666 Allowed even from Dublin
0035316624666 Fails (00 only works in the EU anyway)

Contrariwise Likewise Internationally Except from mobile phones where you may have a full international dial string in case you are roaming.

Next Theory

M

Victor

Originally posted by Muck
Diefo Garcia DOES NOT exist, the whole country code has been sold off to the scum. It is impossible to ring a Diego Garcian on Diego Garcia because the Brits kicked them off years ago and handed the whole island to the Yanks as a B52 base. So....what business does anyone have ringing it then, Fr. Paddy simply ain't there!

It also has ***VAST*** quantity of fibre going to it so the Americans can run their Middle Eastern wars.

Originally posted by Muck
Down at the local pharmacy one day I handed over a list of pharms including Dexedrine and MethAmphetamine. She looked at me in a most peculiar and unwarranted manner. I said YO! , I have the right to do this if I want , she picked up a phone and I simply legged it. I legged it because I understood, knowwhadddddImean like

That made me hurt myself laughing.

Originally posted by DMC
Your (or someone you may know) computer dialled through a porn dialler to a country that exploits the fact that they are the dearest places to ring in the world, because you were not in full ownership or control of their PC. And you are rightly pissed. Your are not accepting liability because you cant control the PC. Your solution for your niaviety is to stop the USO to ring these places.

Eircom's behaviour is tantamount to charging extra into a club, because prostitution is available in that club. You don't have to use the prostitutes, but most people that go to that club go there for the prostitutes. In that case the club would be prosecuted as a brothel keeper. Now Eircom have taken 0.00001% or so of the world's population and put them in a special band with brothel keepers. As a USO they have some responsibility.

To compare, phone one of your buddies in Russia on your new phone account for an hour tonight and see how quick Eircom will limit what bands you can access (legal "in order to protect the company commercially").

Originally posted by Muck
I never said that you should be denied the right, only the right NOT to be inadvertently diverted there, read my comments please and quote where I said otherwise ?

I don't think it's "inadvertently diverted", it is "criminally diverted ".

Originally posted by The Insider
I have only ever heard of porn diallers coming form Porn sites which is then tough s**t, or warez/crack sites which if you are on then you should now how to use you pc.

And what if someone on boards.ie and says "click this link"? I have seen machines in Internet Cafés around town with "dialler.exe" and similar, which would indicate you don't necessarily have to go somewhere “hardcore”.

Our man in Havana

Prehaps Fr. Paddy has found new job. Hosting Porn!!

Victor

Originally posted by Victor
Now Eircom have taken 0.00001% or so of the world's population and put them in a special band with brothel keepers.

Apologies, 0.12% of the world's population.

Cook Islands: 21,008
Tuvalu: 11,305
Papua New Guinea: 5,295,816
Wallis and Futuna: 15,734
Kiribati: 98,549
Guinea-Bissau: 1,360,827
Solomon Islands: 509,190
Vanuatu: 199,414

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tv.html

In 2000, Tuvalu negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name ".tv" for $50 million in royalties over the next dozen years.

Mad Mike

I am happy to admit I nothing about porn diallers but if the accusations in this thread are true then perhaps it would be of interest to someone in the traditional media. I imagine that many of our print journalists would foam at the mouth at the thought of a story about E****m cashing in on a porn scam. Does anyone on Boards.ie know how these things (the meeja) work or is that the exclusive domain of the P45 crowd?

rmacm

I don't want to sound like I support/like eircom. I have a passionate hatred toward them. But in fairness I don't trhink eircom should refund people who are so called victims of porn diallers. People generally get these diallers from looking at porn wheather intentionally or by accident. You should check your machine after and make sure nothing suspicious has been installed. Its not really eircoms responsibility to hand hold customers and stop them from making mistakes like this. These diallers have to launch themselves and you should be able to kill them yourself. Its generally pretty obvious to me when a machine is dialling up to a connection. Anyway thats my 0.2 cents
Cheers
Rory

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mad Mike
I am happy to admit I nothing about porn diallers but if the accusations in this thread are true then perhaps it would be of interest to someone in the traditional media. I imagine that many of our print journalists would foam at the mouth at the thought of a story about E****m cashing in on a porn scam. Does anyone on Boards.ie know how these things (the meeja) work or is that the exclusive domain of the P45 crowd?

I think this is a job for "Jooooeeeee Duuffffffyyyyyyyy!!!!" - I'm fairly sure that he's covered the €2000 phone bill issue, and he's probably more influential than anyone in the print media in this sort of area.