Sri Lanka cuts off Eircom Porn Dialler Band 13 Countries

BrianD

I have no agenda. You seem to be unable to avoid common and plain sense. The concept of personal responsibility has eluded you. I seems to me that you will only accept one answer - the one that concurrs with your misinformed wisdom. Anyway, there's one group of people having a good old laugh - the dialler merchants - and as long as you keep up your arguement they well stay in business. It will band 13 one day 15XX the next and while you're off persuing the telcos with unfounded (and irrelevant ) allegations, Joe Bloggs will still be downloading diallers one way or another. But sure we can always find someone to blame and pick up the tab. Of course, it will end when we all have BB. Well, wishful thinking on that one.

Remember that concept guys - PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

This is a major consumer issue and it's something that, if left unresolved, becomes yet another reason for Irish consumers to decide not to go online.

I 100% agree with you but none of the other posters seem to understand this. Nope, we're too wrapped up bashing Eircom on the irrelevant issue of the charges to Band 13. Any charge that is above the acceptable norm for a dial-up Internet connection is going to be injurious to the consumer. So who cares what they charge for band 13 or how much their margin is and they are welcome to it. The focus has been on the telcos and not back with the consumer where the root of the problem is and also where the solution to this problem lies.

And yes I agree with spot checks on unsual call paterns by telcos in the manner described in an earlier posting. Makes perfect sense, though as someone used a Visa analogy its funny how the banks refund the money, won't co-operate with law enforcement and the problems persist. The telcos, ISP's and the regulator have a responsibility to inform consumers about the responsibile use of the equipment they use (of course you never listen to those points possibly because their not anti-Eircom and are based on reasonable expectations). It is wrong of the regulator to issue a telecoms blockade on Band 13 and why should a telco make certain countries opt in? Nonsense. The regulator could apply pressure on scam dialler hosts to deny access to their network. Unlikely to happen I admitt. ANyway, all these suggested by my goodself in this and previous posting on the topic but conveniently ignored. Why? Because it is common sense and means we can't blame Eircom!

think that chapter is more or less done with. We need not circularly argue with Brian – whose belligerence might well have served some "frodo-ic" motivational purpose – any more.
We should rather congratulate ourselves for having fought and won that battle.
It is neither that important (albeit the negative fall-out for Internet take up should not be underestimated) nor at the centre of the real Internet/broadband woes, which arise from the combination of an impotent regulator, a struggling DCMNR and an incumbent in turbo-capitalistic short term profit mode.

belligerence? have you read the other posters?- I am not the one who has resorted to personal insults. Won the battle? The evidence would point to the contrary. You have in fact lost it. A year ago, I pointed out that the dialler scams would move away from the band 13 hosts into the "legitimate" arena and that Eircoms alleged profiteering and pricing was irrelevant. Modem hijacking is a foot note IT security campaign, most consumers operate their PC's unwittingly in an irresponsible manner and our dialler friends continue to rack in the loot from fresh pastures. Anyway, we'll find somebody to bail them out and we won't have to deal with consumer responsibility.

oscarBravo

BrianD wrote:

I have no agenda.

Bollox. Nobody works that hard to avoid a simple question without an agenda.

dahamsta

Answer the question Brian.

oscarBravo wrote:

is it acceptable that a telco should respond to these scams by cashing in on them?

BrianD

Ken Shabby wrote:

Answer the question Brian.

I respectfully and gracious ask you to read my many postings that have answered this question upmteen times. It's straighforward to me - the telcos may be cashing in on band 13 countries (who were 'havens' for premium voice services before diallers reared their ugly heads) but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they are "cashing in" deliberately on the misfortune of those who have unknowingly installed dialler.
I have no agenda - I neither work for Eircom nor am I a customer of theirs. I am a telecoms customer - landline, mobile, BB so I am entitled to voice my opinion on this board, unpopular as it may be. I have not been rude (though maybe candid) as other posters have been (spongebob comes to mind). I am, however, sick to death of a lack of personal responsibilty in this country and the "nanny state" mentality where government will either bail you out or somebody will pay you back. So perhaps that is my agenda.

Anyway, my bed beckons.

HelterSkelter

BrianD wrote:

...It's straighforward to me - the telcos may be cashing in on band 13 countries (who were 'havens' for premium voice services before diallers reared their ugly heads) but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they are "cashing in" deliberately on the misfortune of those who have unknowingly installed dialler....

See Brian, it wasn't that difficult to directly answer a direct question was it?

Lads, leave him alone, I think he just gets his kicks by trying to wind everyone up.

cgarvey

A difference of opinion, no matter how great, is no excuse for insult, or troll. Put defend your opinion, or put forward your reasoning, but not ridicule the other person, just because they don't agree with you. That's not directed at any one person, just a general plea, before any action needs to happen.

Ta.
.cg

Solair

This "debate" has become ridiculous. The main issue is that Irish consumers need to be protected from dialler fraud. eircom, and possibly other telcos, aren't lifting a finger to do anything serious to stop it.

Personally, I have no interest in bashing eircom. However, they are still our largest provider of PSTN/ISDN services so they do have to take some responsibility for this. I would like to see what BT Ireland, Smart or any of the other operators who handle voice / ISDN traffic via carrier pre-select are doing to deal with this problem too as they've a signifigant percentage of residential / small business voice and ISDN traffic going over their networks.

Customer education's vital but it's only part of the sollution. The telcos, wheather they accept it or not, are being used to relay funds to fraudsters. Since their networks are being used, much like the banking systems, to relay funds around the world and to make payments for service. I would argue that they are providing a channel to legitimise income that is coming from a scam.

When a customer reports a dialler scam to any Irish telco, they should immediately refuse to pass on any charges to the destination telco and waive charges to the customer.

It's unacceptable that any irish company would allow itself to be used in this way by international criminals.

The fact that several technical sollutions exist and that there are precedents in other European countries that could be followed to protect consumers none of which have been implemented by our telcos just makes my view of the entire Irish telco industry even worse.

While, yes BrianD, you could argue that eircom should just heartlessly make as much money as it likes from this nasty situation and it's all the customers fault for not being IT savvy enough to solve the problem themselves, it hardly makes for good corporate citizenship does it?

How would you like if one of the Banks did nothing about ATM fraud? Would you be arguing that it's the customers fault that they were too stupid to notice the fact that there was a large card skimmer installed on the ATM they used?

Education is only PART of the answer to this problem.

The average PC user isn't that technically savvy. Let's face it most people in any country, not just ireland, have no idea what they're doing with a computer half the time. They turn on, click on internet explorer and assume that they're connected at their chosen internet rate etc.

Eircom AND the other telcos are in a position to do something about this situation. Yet eircom chose to hike rates on that particular band and do nothing to stem the flow of calls from zombie modems.

I don't see how anyone could argue that that is right or justifiable.

At the very least it's idiotic and uncaring about their customer base. At the very most it's knowingly milking people who don't have the technical ability to solve or recognise that they have a problem in the first place.