Consumers Pay Big for Dangerous Downloads

National Consumers League warns consumers to beware of an expensive new Internet dialing disaster

WASHINGTON, DC— National Consumers League's Internet Fraud Watch warns consumers that downloading certain programs on their computers for entertainment may cost them hundreds of dollars in unexpected telephone charges. That's because some programs are designed to disconnect the computer from the consumer's regular Internet service and reconnect it directly to the entertainment provider by dialing a phone number in Africa or in another country.

    "We're starting to see a surge in complaints about these services," said Susan Grant, director of Internet Fraud Watch. "Our consumer counselors tell us that many victims are parents of teenagers who never knew their kids were downloading these dialer programs. Unfortunately, the parents may end up being held responsible for the charges, which appear on their phone bills as foreign phone calls."

      The cost varies according to the time of day, the length of time that users are connected to the entertainment services, and the rates that are charged under consumers' long-distance calling plans. "It's not unusual to see charges of several dollars per minute," said Grant. "That can really add up."

      These Web sites may be attractive to consumers, especially to children, because they don't require a credit card or other personally identifiable information. All the person using the computer has to do is download the program. Many of the sites consumers have recently complained about offer "adult content," but dialer programs can also be used to connect consumers to games, music videos, or other forms of entertainment. The entertainment service provider profits by arranging to share some of the money that the foreign phone company makes for connecting the call.

      There are two problems with this method of offering entertainment services, according to the Internet Fraud Watch. One is that the information about how the program works and the telephone charges that will result may not be provided or may be buried deep within a long user agreement.

      "Typically, you first click on something to get ‘connected,’ and then you are instructed to download and install the program," said Grant. "It's only at the install point that you see a user agreement, if there is one, and many people don't bother to wade through it—they just want to get to the entertainment." Sometimes the Web sites even mislead consumers by advertising the services as free. "When you are going to be charged on your phone bill for using a service, that's not free," said Grant.

      The second, and even more serious problem is that there is no way to ensure that the person who downloads the program is the person who is responsible for the phone bill. Sometimes the agreement has a box that the user must check to ‘confirm’ that he or she is responsible for the phone bill, but anyone can check the box, even if the user isn’t the one whose name is on the telephone bill.

      "Services provided in this manner should only be allowed to bill by credit card because it isn't as easy for a child or someone else to make unauthorized charges," said Grant. Consumers who contest these charges should contact their long-distance providers and their state public utility departments to find out about their rights and responsibilities.

      Grant applauded AT&T for working with law enforcement authorities and blocking certain phone numbers that connect to the African country of Chad after receiving complaints about charges for services provided through those numbers. However, while AT&T is the largest long-distance company, it is not the only company through which consumers can make international calls. Furthermore, deceptive entertainment service providers may simply switch to using other numbers. 

NCL offers the following tips to consumers to protect themselves:

·        Don't download a program from a Web site you don't know or trust.

·        Read all user agreements carefully and fully.

·        Don't assume that there is no cost; many downloadable programs are free, but always check first.

·        Don't allow children to surf the Internet unsupervised.

·        Limit the number of people who know the password to go online on your computer.

·        Don't allow anyone to install programs on your computer without your supervision.

In addition, consumers may want to:

Increase the amount of time a site is kept in your browser history file.

Every Web browser has a history folder, a list of all sites visited organized by day. Usually after 20 days a site is erased from the folder. Since the first time you'll know that you've been a victim of the scam is when you receive your phone bill, you need to be able to search back at least 30 days. You should reset the maximum time for your history folder to at least 30 days if not 45 to help you look back and find out what Web sites were visited on the days the calls were made. Your browser's help folder can give you instructions to make the change.

Consider installing monitoring software on your system.

There are commercially available products that will keep a log of all programs installed on your computer and sites visited on the Internet. This will help you enforce the "no install" and "no unsupervised surfing" rules. It will also help you track down the problem should you still unwittingly become the victim of modem hijacking.

Put a block on your computer phone line through your local telephone company to prevent international calls from being dialed.
However, if this is your only phone line, you won't be able to make any calls to other countries. If you put a block through your long-distance carrier instead, it will prevent international calls from being dialed through that company, but still allow you to make calls to other countries through "dial-around" services that are offered by other carriers. Unfortunately, that also means that it would not block dialer programs that use dial-around numbers to connect to entertainment services.

Contact Internet Fraud Watch at www.fraud.org or 800-876-7060 and report the scam.

IFW will send the reports to over 200 law enforcement agencies including the Federal Trade Commission and the National Association of Attorneys General.

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America's pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to identify, protect, represent, and advance the economic and social interests of consumers and workers. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to representing consumers on issues of concern.

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