Scam victim fights on for full compensation
A CAMPAIGN by Times Money to secure compensation for people who have fallen prey to internet phone scams has taken a further step forward.
One victim, Mike Claughton, a freelance writer from Ashford, Kent, has been told by BT that he will be able to recoup about £150 of the £800 cost of mystery premium-rate calls for which it charged him in May. BT suggested that he could recover the remaining money, but he has been unsuccessful so far.
The scams, which Mr Claughton and more than 45,000 other people have encountered, occur when a rogue dialler inserts itself into a user’s computer, often through pop-up boxes, and diverts the machine to call expensive premium-rate and international numbers. Many of these numbers are in remote countries such as São Tomé and Guinea Bissau in West Africa. (...)
