Personal numbers in scam claim
OUT-LAW Radio, 31/05/2007
We talk to the person behind a one-man campaign against the
sometimes shockingly-high cost of calling personal numbers, and
hear what Ofcom is doing about it.
A text transcription follows.
This transcript is for anyone with a hearing impairment or who
for any other reason cannot listen to the MP3 audio file.
The following is the text spoken by OUT-LAW journalist Matthew
Magee.
Hello and welcome to OUT-LAW Radio, the weekly podcast that
keeps you up-to-date on all the twists and turns in the world of
technology law.
Every week we bring you the latest news and in-depth features
that help you to make sense of the ever-changing laws that govern
technology today.
My name is Matthew Magee, and this week as Ofcom announces
measures to make so-called personal numbers more transparent, we
talk to one victim of a possible scam using the 070 numbers.
But first, the news.
- CD WOW! plans to take £35 million High Court defeat to Europe;
and
- One in three bloggers risks the sack.
Online music retailer CD WOW! will continue its legal fight
against the music industry despite a £35 million award against it
in the UK courts this week. The firm says that it will take the
battle to the European Court of Justice if it can.
Trade body the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) took a case
against CD WOW! alleging that the company was engaged in parallel
importing. In March the company was found guilty of breaching
previously given undertakings to the court over its sale of CDs,
and the level of damages has just been set at £35 million plus
costs.
"We are outraged by the judgment” said Henrik Wesslen,
co-founder of CD WOW! “We will fight this all the way to the
European courts even if it takes another three years to win
justice. There will be no let up on our part and CD WOW! will
continue to trade now and in the future. We make tiny margins on
our goods and it is the consumer who benefits not the big high
street stores who rip off their customers by adding massive
margins." said Wesslen.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI said "CD WOW! is no
consumer champion; it is a rogue trader that has now to face the
consequences of its actions".
More than a third of employees who keep personal blogs are
posting information about their employer, workplace or colleagues
and risk dismissal, according to new research.
Human Resources firm Croner commissioned YouGov to ask employees
if they kept a personal blog and, if so, what information they
post. Of those who keep a blog, 39% admitted that they had posted
details which could be potentially sensitive or damaging about
their place of work, employer or a colleague.
Gillian Dowling, technical consultant at Croner said, “If there
is a negative impact on the organisation’s corporate image which is
so serious that it breaches the implied term of mutual trust and
confidence, the employee could be dismissed for gross misconduct.
Employers need to ensure that they carefully consider the impact of
blogging on their organisation and take appropriate steps to
minimise any potential risk,” said Dowling.
That was this week's OUT-LAW news.
When a mysterious missed call appeared on Jim Clark's mobile
phone he was puzzled. The phone hadn't had time to ring, but a
connection had been made. It looked like a mobile number, so – like
many people would – Clark called the number to see who it was. He
got through to a recorded message saying that the number did not
receive calls.
This was the start of a long and complicated trail that Clark
would follow as far as he could: it would lead to compelling
evidence that some kind of scam could be going on, but who was
scamming whom? And how?
Just today, Ofcom announced it would change the rules relating
to personal numbers, which start with 070. Clark had never heard of
them, though. In fact he only realised something was amiss when he
called his mobile operator to check how much he had been charged
and found that his brief call of 10 or 15 seconds had
cost him £2.
His shock soon turned to alarm.
Jim Clark: So I returned the call and when I
dialled the number my call immediately bounced to a recorded
message and the message said that this was a virtual number and
that it didn’t accept telephone calls so after 10 or 15 seconds I
ended the call. I found the whole episode a wee bit suspicious so I
called my service operator’s automated line, Virgin Mobile, just to
find out that the last call cost and it turns out it was £2. So,
that enraged me slightly and also shocked me as well the fact that
it was £2. My understanding was that every 07 number was a mobile
number, I didn’t realise there was a difference, so I called my
wife that afternoon to explain what had happened to me and she said
that she had received a similar number on her screen and her phone
never rang, but she also called it back thinking it was someone
trying to get through to her and she didn’t realise she had been
charged £2 for the call and it wasn’t until later on that evening
when we checked her account on the internet that we realised that
she’d also been stung for the same amount.
After much investigation, Clark discovered that the number that
had called him was not a mobile phone number at all, but something
called a personal number. These begin with the digits 070, so look
like mobiles, but there is one crucial difference: they can be
extremely expensive to call.
These numbers should cost a maximum of 50p to call from a
landline, but mobile phone operators can add to that cost.
The network and the company which sells and operates the service
for the number owner can both earn what is called 'revenue share'
on the call: that is, they can share the £1.50 difference between
the 50p landline cost of Clark's call and the £2 that he paid.
Clark sought help from premium phone line regulator ICSTIS,
telecoms regulator, Ofcom, his mobile phone network, Virgin and the
Telco firm which controls the number on behalf of its end user,
Global One. Though Virgin reimbursed his and his wife's £2 charges,
he found little other help.
Jim Clark: As far as consumer support was
concerned though there does not appear to be any and that’s rather
worrying. I wrote to the people in organisations that I’d copied my
original e-mail to and I thought that had a result and with that I
attached a hall of fame and a name and shame and it consisted of
the organisation’s name, what response I had received, what they
had done for me and rated them with like smiley faces or
indifferent or sad faces. Virgin Mobile and Metropolitan Police
Service responded almost immediately to that. Virgin were very
diplomatic and skimming past the issues but they apologised that I
was unaware that the number dialled was premium rate but they did
their best to investigate the scam but the couldn’t reveal the
outcome to me. The Metropolitan Police are very open and pleasant
and personal response and they explained that they do look into
every complaint but they are obviously inundated with EBay scams
and various different things on the internet as well and
unsurprisingly didn’t get anything at all from Ofcom or from
ICSTIS, both the regulators.
So what are personal numbers? What is their legitimate use? And
who makes sure they are not used for scams?
Well, also known as 'follow me anywhere' numbers, personal
numbers are a way for someone to make sure that people can always
stay in touch with them, and are often used for patients in
hospitals.
Two bodies regulate telephone services and numbers in the UK.
Ofcom is the overall telecoms regulator, and it delegates control
of premium rate numbers to a body called ICSTIS.
ICSTIS says that it sometimes regulates personal numbers, and
sometimes doesn't. It all depends on the service being run on the
number. An ICSTIS spokeswoman said that it can only get involved if
the number owner is operating a commercial premium rate style
service, such as a chat line, and must be charging over 10 pence a
minute. If it can't deal with the number, it passes the case on to
Ofcom.
Ofcom, it turns out, is already aware that 070 numbers are
causing problems. It told us that it is in fact considering
scrapping 070 numbers altogether because of the potential confusion
with mobile numbers. Today it announced further measures on keeping
the costs transparent.
A spokesman told us that the regulator is thinking about moving
personal numbers on to the 06 number range by the end of this year
to reduce the confusion.
He said that there were two main problems with personal numbers:
the confusion with mobile numbers and the lack of transparency on
cost.
The basic cost of an 070 number is between 10 and 50 pence, but
as with many numbers, a mobile operator can add an additional
charge on top of that if the call is made from a mobile.
Ofcom said today that to address the cost issue it is ordering
that a free alert be provided for callers to 070 numbers if the
cost is higher than 20 pence a minute or 20 pence a call. This
warning will come before the call is connected, will tell the
caller how much they are going to be charged, and will allow the
caller to hang up if they don't want to accept the charge.
So it looks as though this time next year there would be no way
that Clark would be faced with his nasty surprise.
But what about Clark's call? According to ICSTIS and Ofcom there
were a number of unusual things about this call. For a start it was
outgoing. ICSTIS told us that these numbers are largely designed to
receive rather than to make calls.
The recorded message was also odd: it is unusual for a service
designed to receive calls to have a message saying that it can't do
that.
Potentially the most revealing of all was the fact that Clark's
wife received an identical call just minutes later. Her number was
numerically similar to Clark's, indicating that an automatic
dialler could have been at work.
But here's the big puzzle: it looks unlikely that the person
behind the phone number can actually get a decent share of that £2
cost.
Ofcom told us that in 2003 the telecoms regulator banned revenue
sharing on 070 numbers. That means that if a call costs £2 that
money can go to the mobile company, BT for its phone network, the
company that manages the 070 number, but not to the person behind
the number itself.
We tried to talk to Global One, the service provider behind the
number which managed it on behalf of its user. They didn't respond,
but they did tell Clark that they did not tolerate behaviour such
as that of the number's owner.
Jim Clark: The chap that I spoke to was very
very pleasant, he explained that they do not tolerate that sort of
abuse from the personal numbers, they have a legitimate use
apparently. He explained at the time on the telephone that he would
suspend the offending number immediately within the next couple of
minutes it would be suspended and he did say that they can only
enact on such abuse whenever it is reported to them. So at the end
of the day someone is clearing money from it and nobody seems to be
stopping it and people are being hit by this unfortunately and
whether it be the fraudster, or whether it be the telephone
operator that’s making the money, someone’s making money from
something that they shouldn’t be.
So it is impossible to know for sure where Clark's £2 went, and
who really profited. It can't be the person behind the number
itself since 070 numbers don't have revenue sharing. Yet the
activity emanating from the number has all the hallmarks of some
kind of scam.
What Clark is upset about is that he feels he had very little
official support when he began to look into the mysterious
situation. Clark had copied an Ofcom board member into his e-mail,
but Ofcom said that had he got in touch with its contact centre his
complaint would have been dealt with.
Still, Clark felt that this was a potential scam which nobody
was taking responsibility for.
Jim Clark: I know that it’s only £2 and it’s a
triviality but it’s something that when I phoned nobody could do
anything about it, it really really disturbed me, the fact that
Ofcom didn’t want to know, ICSTIS didn’t want to know, Virgin
didn’t want to know, I mean three people including myself that I
was aware of were all targeted by it and that just isn’t right.
That's all we have time for this week. Thanks for listening.
Why not get in touch with OUT-LAW Radio? Do you know of
technology law story? We’d love to hear from you on radio@OUT-LAW.com.
Make sure you tune in next week. For now, goodbye.
OUT-LAW Radio was produced and presented by Matthew
Magee, for international law firm, Pinsent Masons.
