THE regulator is poised to introduce a total ban on premium-rate internet charge sites following thousands of complaints from consumers. A spokesman for Icstis, the watchdog for premium rate phone lines, says: “We are ready, as an extreme measure, to look at the possibility of banning these sites. We’re very aware of the harm they can do to consumers — we are receiving two to three thousand calls per week.”

BT and Icstis have been stung into action by growing consumer anger over internet phone scams. They have pledged to redouble their efforts to stamp out these activities and say that they are ready to listen to ideas from phone users on how this can be done.

The scams, first highlighted in Times Money, involve a rogue dialler that inserts itself into a computer, often through pop-up boxes, and diverts it from ringing its normal internet service provider. Instead, it calls international premium-rate numbers in remote countries such as São Tomé and Guinea Bissau, in West Africa. Phone customers then receive huge bills for calls they say they have not made. Most of these calls are carried over BT lines for the first part of their journey and BT says it receives about 6p per minute of the revenue.

The Icstis announcement comes as Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, joined the growing number of Times Money readers calling for BT and Icstis to do more to tackle these scams.

Mr Lamb, MP for Norfolk North, says: “I think it is totally wrong for BT to be profiting from these scams. There is a strong case for the company to donate the revenue it receives from this source to a fund for the victims of these operations.”

He also says that Icstis should work to identify and punish companies running these lines. This could include clamping down on “front” companies set up in the UK to disguise the identity of people running the scams and greater efforts to trace those operating from overseas.

Until now, Icstis and BT have told customers that there is little more they can do. This has enraged victims such as Barry Borman, a solicitor from North London, who is ready to join forces with other customers to sue BT for failing to exercise a proper duty of care towards them.

Mr Borman says: “BT has been aware of these scams since last summer but seems to have done nothing to stamp them out. It should also have contacted customers to tell them that this is happening and what sort of protection is available.”

Jo Green, of Darlington, is another BT customer who has been charged for premium-rate calls (to Moldova), which neither she nor her family know anything about.

She says: “I question the wisdom of BT in making payments not authorised by its customers to a jurisdiction where recovery is wholly impracticable. Surely it would be better to require the people behind international premium-rate lines using 090 numbers in this country to post a bond here so that they have assets against which money could be recovered.”

Icstis says: “The idea of making 090 premium-rate operators produce a bond before being able to rent a line is a very good one. All premium-rate live entertainment services are already required to do this and we are considering whether to extend this to the operators of internet charge sites.

“Where the rogue operators are based overseas and hire lines from overseas phone companies, we are trying to persuade British phone companies to stop passing money to the overseas companies for eventual transmission to the premium-rate operators. If BT stopped handing over money to a São Tomé phone company, the overseas phone company would quickly lose interest in continuing to lease lines to rogue operators.

BT says: “We think the bond idea is a good one. We would also look at the option of withholding money from overseas premium-rate operators where wrongdoing was suspected, though we could leave ourselves open to legal challenge. Banning all internet charge sites would be an extreme solution.”

BT says that it believes the way forward is individual call barring. However, to bar international and premium-rate numbers, customers would have to pay a charge of £1.50 a month.

Readers wishing to contact Barry Borman can do so at his firm, Bude Storz, on 020-8800 2800.

MARK ATHERTON

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