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> $1100 home phone bill, HELP!
mugenakuma
post Jan 19 2004, 10:45 PM
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I recently got a $1100 phone bill showing calls to Estonia, I think in Russia. The calls all seem to have been to a cell phone.

Anyway I have NO idea how these calls were made! They showed up during November when I recently had my phone company changed to SBC and my DSL service setup with Earthlink.

Does anyone know if there is any way a person can make calls through your phone line using DSL?

I know as a fact nobody in my house made these calls, so either someone used DSL to hack my phone line to make these calls OR what about my cordless phone setup?

Could someone have gotten into my cordless phone connetion, maybe a neighbor, and made these calls with their phone?

If anyone has any idea how this could have happened please help. there is no way Im paying this huge ridiculous bill!

thanks,

Glenn
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net_bull
post Jan 19 2004, 11:47 PM
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Glenn,
Ouch.. I told you that Russian maid was trouble..
But seriously, you need to call SBC asap to dispute the charges. The sooner you do that the better. I'm assuming the long distance carrier is SBC so if not, you just contact whoever's sending you the $1100 bill. Ask them to open an investigation and if it's your neighbor doing it, SBC (or whoever) can maybe reverse map the Estonia numbers to his/her line, assuming your neighbor used his/her service to call the same numbers before.
As to how this happened to you, take a look at the time of the calls for clues. Physical access to your phone is still the most likely scenario. Depending on your cordless phone, 'hijacking' the line by matching the channel and code is quite unlikely and your DSL service shouldn't come into play at all.
At any rate, good luck.
Steve
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post Jan 20 2004, 02:37 AM
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I wish I had a Russian made to blame! The calls were all made late at night. I am up late but there is NO way I made the calls, even by accident. The calls require over 12 digits to be entered, something I would never do. As far as I know I don't have any Russian neighbors so I couldn't imagine any of them being responsible but who knows.

I heard something a while ago about people running scams that charge your phone bill when they call you. Something like a phone call arrives at your house, an automated voice tells you to push a few numbers and then your phone is charged. Could this be it?

So Steve, you are sure that there is no way someone could have hacked into my cpu, and use my DSL to make calls?

Just lookin for ideas.

thanks,

Glenn

P.S. When I talked to the people at SBC they said I just had to pay the bill! I am planning to call back and really make a stink about this. I will be sure to post what happens!
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mugenakuma
post Jan 20 2004, 04:15 AM
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Oh yea that was me above.

Anyway check out this link. Maybe this is what happened to me.

http://www.consumer-action.org/English/Pre...03_04_15_PR.php
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net_bull
post Jan 20 2004, 05:00 AM
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Glen,
All of those scams involve some sort of calls to your house and then re-route them so if you've never received weird calls at night during those days, that's probably not the case. Someone could've tapped into your line somewhere around your house, which shouldn't be too hard for knowledgable folks.
Using your DSL connection is highly unlikely but not impossible. Come to think about it, if you don't have a good protection scheme, someone can potentially remote into your PC, then if you have a modem attached to the PC BESIDES your DSL connection, they can dial out using your modem and either setup a conference call or something like that. I know even with my cable modem connection, I still have a regular modem attached to the phone line for the occasional faxes or backup dial-up when cable's down or I'm trying to test a web app over a 56k connection, but not sure if you have something similar???
Good luck again.. It seems like a pain in the a** and you might call your local police precinct just to see if there are any other similar cases in the area.

Steve
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Sean
post Jan 20 2004, 01:10 PM
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I would be calling everybody police, phone company, neighbors, everybody. You have to find the cause or it could happen again. This is unreal, I would looks my flipping mind with a bill like that.


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mshe
post Jan 27 2004, 06:17 AM
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Did you visit a porn site and install some type of Modem Dialer program?
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FiReBReTHa
post Dec 23 2004, 04:04 PM
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sounds like physical access.old school methods


Have You used the phone ever at these times?
The reason i say because the way that this could have done by going to the side of your house, finding your TNI box, popping her open and running a line from it to like 50FT away and relaxing and having their phone convo.

If i were you I would invest in a small lock that fits in your TNI box or first try a zip tie and see if anyone messes with it.
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Slacker
post Dec 23 2004, 08:41 PM
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QUOTE
Did you visit a porn site and install some type of Modem Dialer program?


That's my guess as well.


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