Bell customers face $220,000 bills due to hackers
 

TORONTO -- Businesses are crying foul after receiving sky-high phone bills that charged them upwards of $200,000 because hackers broke into their voicemail system and hijacked it to make long-distance calls.

While a spokeswoman for BCE's Bell Canada (TSX:BCE) says the bills have been reduced by the phone company, the businesses insist they shouldn't be forced to pay for any of the illicit calls.

Martin & Hillyer, a law firm based in Burlington, Ont., says it has been hacked and is battling to erase a bill that includes charges worth more than $207,000 in calls to Sierra Leone in western Africa.

The law firm isn't alone in but Bell Canada spokeswoman Julie Smithers calls the situation "really rare" and a "very old scam" that affects primarily business customers, although she said some residential consumers have been caught.

Here's how Bell thinks it works: an automated dialler will target a specific phone number, and wait for the voicemail to respond. Then, the computer will go through standard voicemail passwords.

Once it finds the correct password -- often a predictable number combination -- the automated dialler will choose an option on the voicemail that allows it to make long-distance phone calls.

On the phone bill it looks like the calls were made directly from the office or home number.

Smithers said Bell does have technologies to detect "bizarre calling patterns and in a lot of cases we can stop it by placing a block on long distance."

But she added "it is extremely important and it is the customer's responsibility to put passwords in place that are difficult to guess."

In Oakville, Gordon Cowan, the president of GPS Consulting Group & Insurance Agencies, faced a similar problem on a smaller scale.

His offices rung up more than $60,000 in charges, starting with a 14-hour period on a weekend in early October.

"I came in on Sunday and there was a call from the Bell Canada fraud squad saying we had been breached. They shut our voice mail system down," Cowan said in an interview.

"They told us to change our passwords, which we have been doing anyway, and they would be in contact with us."

Cowan says that a week later the hacking happened again.

In both instances, Bell Canada agreed to reduce bill as a "goodwill gesture" -- in the law firm's case they cut it down to about half of the $207,000.

Cowan's $60,000 bill was slashed to about $7,000.

Bell says that Canadians are responsible for taking steps to prevent their voicemail from being hacked.

"It is something that's not unique to Bell -- it has been seen by pretty much every telephone company in the country, the U.S. and internationally," Smithers said.

Last week, reports from Australia said that police were investigating claims from a Perth business that its Internet phone lines were hacked, resulting in a $120,000 phone bill from more than 11,000 international calls.

WTF... hacking voice mail to make calls?...

but it's your fault if you voice mail gets hacked! LOL WTF.

glad to see bell be so nice to reduce the bill to 100k down from 200k LOL... taking a battle against a law firm. brilliant!

damn crazy

Ah.... good ol' classic PBX hacking. Jolly Roger, anyone?

lol maybe the hacker works for bell

bells sucks

.... how difficult could a 4 number combination be....

It's completely unaccetpable that Bell is leaving the customers on the hook for a portion of the bills. When your VISA number is stolen, you do not pay anything, VISA goes after the theives, because they can track the purchase locations.

Bell can track the phone numbers to physical locations just like VISA can, but instead of doing the leg work, they pass on the bill to the victim. Total BS. I hope BELL gets sued for that business policy.

Telecom companies have been ripping us all off for years with excessive service charges. They are just as bad, if not worse, than the oil companies. screw em all.

+1, use to work for a consulting firm. worked with bell mobility, on site, even though i got free fones from bell, i never used them. for the same reasons. bell was the master in phone monopoly, turning off features on thr phones.
thats why they r going down.
fuck em...

In both instances, Bell Canada agreed to reduce bill as a "goodwill gesture" -- in the law firm's case they cut it down to about half of the $207,000.


lol fuck that

its like the time i talked to fido about fucking up my phone bill. I had the city fido plan which is unlimited outgoing and incoming, they charged me for all the calls i called out so basicly an unlimited incoming plan. It was like 450 dollers and they said they would reduce it half for me cuz THEY fucked up

fido always messed up the bill.. ~_~

just tell them to wave it off:thumbsup:

happened to the company i work at too.

hope you didn't pay, u should tell them you're switching to telus if they don't wave it off, telecom companies hate the competition