Citizens Advice alerts Internet users to rogue diallers.

National charity Citizens Advice is urging people to protect themselves against an Internet scam that cunningly connects web surfers up to premium rate numbers without them realising until they receive a highly inflated phone bill. The warning comes as the Office of Fair Trading continues its Scams Awareness Month to alert the public to deceptive and fraudulent mass-marketed scams.

Citizens Advice Bureaux report seeing many cases where Internet users have been unwittingly connected to premium rate numbers by an innocent click of the mouse. In some cases, by closing a pop-up box or pressing 'no' when asked to view a website, scammers are disconnecting you from your usual Internet Service Provider (ISP) and reconnecting you to a premium rate number without you realising. Often the premium rate number stays in your dialler, meaning that every time you connect to the Internet, the dialler will dial up the premium rate number. It is only when you check the dialler that you will be able to tell that the number has been changed; it is then a case of manually changing the dial-up back to your original provider. This results in an exorbitant phone bill and can cause a dispute between the individual and the telephone company over who is liable to foot the phone bill. In one case a CAB client from the Midlands received a bill for 319.57 pounds on top of her usual 14.99 pounds a month. She had been closing pop-ups and found instead she had been connected to a premium rate number. She found out that a company in Spain had been causing the problem and when she contacted them they asked for personal details including her bank details and passport number, which they could have used as part of the scam. In another case a client from Suffolk received a bill for 173.45 pounds, mostly for calls to a series of premium rate numbers. The calls were traced back to Spain. When the client contacted the company in Spain she was asked to provide bank details on the pretext that they needed this information to investigate her complaint. As part of its work as the UK European Consumer Centre (ECO), Citizens Advice is urging people to sign up for their phone provider's offer of barring of premium rate numbers on residential telephone lines in the UK. The service stops any dialling to all UK based 090 premium rate number and is the most flexible solution to combat the problem. Phone providers will also bar international number calls, where the scam can originate. If you have been unlucky enough to fall victim to a rogue scammer, you can contact premium rate services regulator ICSTIS, which has recently been given greater powers to tackle these unscrupulous firms. All diallers operating on premium rate numbers now have to be licensed by ICSTIS, and if they do not have a licence they will be shut down. ICSTIS will acquire greater powers later this year following the OFCOM review of premium rate services. www.icstis.org.uk or 0800 500 212