Fergie's Tech Blog

UK: Telewest falls victim to phone sex scam

Tim Richardson writes in The Register:

Telewest is still trying to hunt down a mucky phone thief who gained access to a number of the cableco's street cabinets in London to make calls to XXX chat lines.

The calls were made to two adult chat services - one featuring "older housewives" and the other described as "Live Asian 1-2-1" - during August. Details of the calls only surfaced when Telewest phone customers noticed that they had racked up sizeable bills to these chat services but denied making the calls themselves.

It's understood that those behind the calls racks up bills totalling more than £1,000 before they stopped.

Part of the investigation by regulator ICSTIS centred on the fact that the length of the calls made exceeded the usual 20 minute limit for premium rate calls. Datapro Services Ltd - which ran the adult lines - said this had happened because the calls were made by a "skilled engineer" operating in a "position of trust".

posted by Fergie @ 10/31/2005 09:26:00 AM