unwanted premium rate numbers

C

ccl4

Sorry wrong e-mail on previous posting
Unfortunately ! an instant access internet connection is
on child's computer. This of course accesses undesirable
area of internet I think. Child denies regular use but
telephone bill says otherwise. He has always complained
that when he puts on music to play via windows media
player that the computer connects to the internet - I
presume searching for info on artists etc. Could this
search by the media player be accessing the internet via
the premium line rate rather than local rate ?
Child says that the unacceptable site does not appear nor
does warning about premium rate. There is a firewall
installed !
I have little understanding of this process and would
appreciate any help. I reaslise of course that he could
have just been accessing undesirable sites straight off
but his limited admissions and furtehr denials are
convinving. He is down as accessing at times when others
are in the house. You want to believe your child !
 
D

Donald McDaniel

ccl42004 said:
Sorry wrong e-mail on previous posting
Unfortunately ! an instant access internet connection is
on child's computer. This of course accesses undesirable
area of internet I think. Child denies regular use but
telephone bill says otherwise. He has always complained
that when he puts on music to play via windows media
player that the computer connects to the internet - I
presume searching for info on artists etc. Could this
search by the media player be accessing the internet via
the premium line rate rather than local rate ?
Child says that the unacceptable site does not appear nor
does warning about premium rate. There is a firewall
installed !
I have little understanding of this process and would
appreciate any help. I reaslise of course that he could
have just been accessing undesirable sites straight off
but his limited admissions and furtehr denials are
convinving. He is down as accessing at times when others
are in the house. You want to believe your child !
Get rid of AOL and get a proper ISP which won't charge you "premium"
rates.
 
S

Sharon F

Sorry wrong e-mail on previous posting
Unfortunately ! an instant access internet connection is
on child's computer. This of course accesses undesirable
area of internet I think. Child denies regular use but
telephone bill says otherwise. He has always complained
that when he puts on music to play via windows media
player that the computer connects to the internet - I
presume searching for info on artists etc. Could this
search by the media player be accessing the internet via
the premium line rate rather than local rate ?
Child says that the unacceptable site does not appear nor
does warning about premium rate. There is a firewall
installed !
I have little understanding of this process and would
appreciate any help. I reaslise of course that he could
have just been accessing undesirable sites straight off
but his limited admissions and furtehr denials are
convinving. He is down as accessing at times when others
are in the house. You want to believe your child !

If there is an online connection Media Player will check an online database
for artist/album information. If there is not an online connection, Media
Player may ask if you want to go online but will not initiate a connection
without the user's okay. The program can be configured to never check the
database as well. The default database is not a premium charge. If it's
even possible, extra steps would be needed to redirect Media Player to a
subscription site ($) for this information.

Dialers can sneak in on systems in various ways. To name just a few:
--Installing "free" software that may or may not mention that dialer it's
going to install right along with the program that you wanted.
--Point to point software (kazaa, for example) configured correctly is
still a bit risky. Configured poorly it can be a continual stream of virus,
trojans, worms, ads, scumware.
--An email attachment disguised as something else.

Some dialers have will have an uninstall option in Add/Remove Programs.
There may some additional cleanup involved to get rid of it. You can
usually find removal information via a google search.

AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy can be helpful in their removal. Sites
like www.doxdesk.com and www.spywareinfo.com have a wealth of information
on many kinds of web parasites including dialers.

Your son may not be intentionally installing the dialer and using it. It
may be sneaking in on something else that's "cool" with the kids. And there
are dialers that have been known to place calls on their own with the
distinct goal of racking up $ on the phone bill. Your judgment call with
the kid but it is possible that he's telling you the truth.
 
M

Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)

If this is a special phone number, not the phone normally used to access his
online service, it would appear a dialer has been installed on his system.
Note, this can happen quite unwittingly. In any event, be sure the
antivirus software on his system is up to date, if he has none, then
certainly acquire such an application and run a scan.

Also, download, inststall and run Ad Aware:
www.lavasoftusa.com
 
S

Sharon F

Sorry wrong e-mail on previous posting
Unfortunately ! an instant access internet connection is
on child's computer. This of course accesses undesirable
area of internet I think. Child denies regular use but
telephone bill says otherwise. He has always complained
that when he puts on music to play via windows media
player that the computer connects to the internet - I
presume searching for info on artists etc. Could this
search by the media player be accessing the internet via
the premium line rate rather than local rate ?
Child says that the unacceptable site does not appear nor
does warning about premium rate. There is a firewall
installed !
I have little understanding of this process and would
appreciate any help. I reaslise of course that he could
have just been accessing undesirable sites straight off
but his limited admissions and furtehr denials are
convinving. He is down as accessing at times when others
are in the house. You want to believe your child !

PS: Just in case I am misunderstanding what you mean by premium rate
numbers and since someone else mentioned AOL. Two more thoughts:

1) Any online service provider or ISP should be very clear about numbers
for their service that are premium service. Usually you can find info about
services used in the online billing records. And these can be unsubscribed
from. The ISP may even provide parental controls that disallow the use of
any premium services.

2) Some services offer access numbers that are charged at a different rate.
One would have to configure the software to dial those numbers. This does
not happen automatically.
 

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