British telecom BT has introduced safeguards to protect Internet customers from rogue dialer scams, including a new warning system tipping the customers off to any sharp increases in their monthly telephone bills.
BT Modem Protection, as the new safeguards are called, is a free download offering that stops computers from dialing premium rate or international numbers, two of the more bedeviling dialer scams Britain has fought for several years.
A second such product, whose name is not yet disclosed, is an early warning alert warning customers if their bills rise "dramatically" over their usual patterns on any day, or calls go to destinations believed to be operating unregistered dialers. Upon receiving the warning, BT said, the customer can ask the telecom to put a premium rate bar on the account.
BT had already been trying to crack down on rogue dialers, announcing last June that they would block traffic to premium rater numbers suspected of delivering rogue dialers, and without waiting for British telephony regulator ICSTIS to finish any investigation.
That, however, provoked a challenge from another British telecom, Opera, which has launched a legal challenge claiming BT blocked access to lines Opera leases to Netcollex, an adult entertainment company, and demanding BT compensate for lost revenues, according to British news reports.
The case has been adjourned after Opera asked in February for more time to prepare. The case is expected to return to the High Court within a month.
BT, however, isn't letting the Opera case deter them. "(We have) led the way in trying to tackle this very distressing issue," said group managing director Gavin Patterson.
"Although we haven't created this problem, we have ploughed resources and a tremendous amount of time into developing new products to help our customers," he continued. "We hope these will build on our previous efforts, including raising customer awareness, which has resulted in more people making the choice to avoid dialers completely by taking up our existing call-barring tools.”
