900 charges on phone bill

[Jena]

I just got my phone bill and there is $80 worth of charges for a 900 number. 2 calls, 2 minutes each, $40 each.

I've always had a 900 block on my phone, so I don't know what's up with that. I will have to call the phone company to see.

My first thought was my teenager and porn, but after looking up the billing company, Integretel, on the internet, I see that they bill people for stuff downloaded on-line.

What? I have never heard of my computer being used to dial 900 numbers. I have another son who is very into computer games and now he seems to be the culprit here, but I think he had no idea what he was doing.

How does this computer, 900 number thing work? I am pretty sure that I can get the charges off my bill, but this is a new one to me. How does this work? How can it be avoided?

Thanks
Jena

[cfabe]

Ask your son first. There is a method they can use to charge stuff to your phone bill like a 900 call, I think without even calling. If he did charge them, make him pay the bill.

[Thatch]

You might want to check into auto dialer virus. Could be that your system got infected somewhere along the way and no one in the house is directly to blame. Sad part is, if it is an auto dialer, you've gotten off cheap at $80, but you'd better figure it out fast lest that be only the beginning.

http://www.windowsecurity.com/whitep...Virus1532.html

Good luck,

J

[FolioMark]

Thatch is right. More than likely an autodialer virus. You can get it just going to a perfectly innocent site and it starts dialing 900 numbers like mad. You are lucky, when I got one the number was in Africa in some tiny place I'd never heard of and had to look it up in the Atlas. About 250 bucks in less than a month. Phone company will cancel such an occurence just once then its the very devil to get them to revoke the charges. I'd get the puter checked and clean and get on to the phone company right away. Good luck with it.

[Tango]

We had a similar problem a few years ago and I called the phone company and they removed the charges from my bill.

[GR8LIFE]

I have had the same situation recently and a similar one several years ago. The recent one was to the 900 numbers and it was $40. The phone company took it off and blocked my computer phone from making 900 calls. A few years ago I had a phone bill to Madagascar. Phone company was willing to take that one off as well and block international calls. Since that is the line for my computer, I don't mind having those things blocked.

We don't have kids so we know that these were both done by computer hackers. So, please don't assume it was one of your kids if he denies it. Better to show faith in him and be wrong then to not show faith and be wrong.

Colleen

[Dec429]

Back in 1996, I was travelling back and forth for business between MO and Indiana. I received my phone bill for the house in MO, and there was a charge in the amount of $55.00 for a 900 call.
I contacted the phone company and was told it was for a psychic hotline. they would not remove the charge and their reason being the call was made from the house. Now, I was in Fort Wayne, IN the date and time of the call.
I had to submit a letter to the phone company and to the psychic hotline address.
Of course, the psychic number called me and demanded their money. I explained the situation, and they got nasty with me. told me I had to pay it or it would be turned over for collection.
I asked them if they were supposedly psychics to let me know how I was going to pay it, and maybe they could look into their crystal gazer and tell me who made the call at 3:00 am on that date!
Never heard from them again, and the charge was credited back on the next months billing!

[Cornhusker]

Teenagers in the house.
They might not even know they dialed it.
We had a similar situation a few years ago, seems when you click on certain links, they download a dialer for you and proceed to dial in to get the "free" whatever.
Block 900 numbers, or better yet, ditch the dialup.

[ChickenTracy]

I also have the 900 block on my phones. Had no idea that a 900 # could be dialed from my PC. If you've got a block on it then no calls from home or PC should be able to go through. How do I fix this so I wouldn't end up with any 900 calls on my line? DH would have a cow if something like this happened!

[Gary in ohio]

If your 900 blocked call the company and tell them to remove it.

[canfossi]

I have had that happen to me. There were calls from Somolia and Ethiopia on my bill. I just called the phone company and they had them erased. Check your virus protection on your computer, that's how I got the charges, my computer has viruses. Not exactly sure how it works. Chris