You got your phone hacked? Tough! Pay the Bill.
 

You got your phone hacked? Tough! Pay the Bill.
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Don't get me started about hackers...
They are destroying our ability to communicate with each other.

In the meantime, get ready to pay for the damages they incur.

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'Yes scam' bilks AT&T customers
Company says they must pay for unauthorized calls

Tuesday, May 27, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle

When Susan Steel called her phone line a few months ago, she heard something strange.

Instead of her usual voice-mail greeting, a man with an accent answered: "Investment office, please hold." Then after a burst of elevator music, the voice returned to say "Yes . . . yes . . . yes." Steel kept saying "hello," but the man ignored her, then hung up.

It wasn't until the next day that Steel, a self-employed employee recruiter in San Francisco, learned what had happened: She was the victim of the "yes scam."

Someone had hijacked her voice-mail box to make thousands of dollars in long-distance phone calls to Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.

Here's how the scheme works:

In recent months, hackers have been dialing into peoples' voice-mail boxes and trying to guess the password. If successful, they then record a new outgoing message. Later on, the hacker places a long-distance phone call and asks the operator (or a computer) to forward the charges. The operator calls the hacked phone number and gets the changed message, which tricks the phone company into thinking that the line's owner has agreed to accept the charges for a long-distance phone call.

In Steel's case, before she had a chance to change her phone message, the hackers had run up more than $20,000 in long-distance charges via AT&T, including 95 hours in overseas calls.

But what came next is even worse: Even though AT&T agreed Steel was the victim of fraud, it insists she is on the hook for much of the charges.

"It is an awful thing," Steel said. "I can't sleep. I wake up and think about it."

Steel is hardly alone. Phone thieves have reportedly broken into the voice- mail systems of scores of victims nationwide, sticking them with thousands of dollars in overseas phone charges before they detect anything amiss.

Experts said AT&T is just one of several companies affected by the scam. But while SBC Communications and some other companies have agreed to reverse the charges, critics complain that AT&T is insisting customers pay for thousands of dollars in calls they never made.

"This is devastating people," said Linda Sherry of Consumer Action, a San Francisco consumer group that has heard from 13 victims so far, all AT&T customers. "I am talking with trial lawyers to see if they can do anything."

AT&T, however, blamed the customers for using easy-to-guess passwords or never bothering to change the default passwords assigned by their local phone company. (Steel, who never worried about anyone tapping into her voice-mail box, simply used the easy-to-remember code 1-2-3-4.)

"The customer is responsible," said AT&T spokesman H. Gordon Diamond. In addition, Diamond faulted SBC for not doing enough to warn customers to change their voice-mail codes.

But SBC blamed AT&T's automated system, which asked the same question exactly the same way, making it easy to fool with a recorded message.

In Steel's case, Diamond said, a human operator was fooled by the message.

But Diamond said the phone company has taken several measures to trip up the scam in the future. For instance, the company sometimes asks recipients of a collect call to punch in a random number on their key pad to make sure it's a real person authorizing the call, and not a sophisticated voice-mail recording.

Since it added the security measures earlier this year, Diamond said the company has recorded only a handful of voice-mail fraud cases.

But SBC spokesman John Britton faulted AT&T for continuing to press victims of the scam to pay for the fraudulent calls.

"It's terrible for the consumer," said Britton, adding that SBC and several other carriers have waived any such charges. "I don't know why AT&T is trying to make further victims of these consumers."

Steel's attorney, Jeffrey Keller, said he is considering suing AT&T on behalf of Steel and other victims, saying the company could have eliminated the scam altogether with tighter security.

"It's outrageous," Keller said. "There are ways to prevent this."
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If 1984-type measures to ferret out crime concern you, while you're blaming big brother, don't forget to blame the folks who hack our communications.

I'm not going to go on about this. It all disturbs me way too much.

I agree Art, it's truly scary what hackers can do to us nowadays.

hackers are becoming more frequent and smarter every day.

I see that Ma Bell is being her usual "gutless wonder" and having her honest customers pay for her lack of security. To me that is as much of a crime as what the hackers are doing.

god, that's creepy.

Its fraud it doesnt matter if the password is easy to guess or not. If I leave the keys in my car, or my windows unlocked at night and someone breaks into my car/house it still theft and unlawful. Insurance should pay for this or the charges should be dropped. I vote for the latter.

Re: You got your phone hacked? Tough! Pay the Bill.
 

I hear you. Granted, these people didn't change their password, or did some simple password, but AT&T is responsible for its own system. If I used AT&T, or didn't, and they charged me for something like this, I'd laugh at them and tell 'em where they could put their demand. I've had enough of my own problems with AT&T's billing department.

If they insisted, I'd bill them for my time in telling them I wasn't paying, more than they were charging me, of course. And dun them when they didn't pay.

Well, they didn't change their passwords, but that's no big deal because the only thing a hacker should be able to do is mess with their messages.

In order to forward charges, the phone company has to call and GET PERMISSION from someone. If they are tricked by a voice message, then they failed to get permission, and should thereby be responsible for footing the bill.

*inquizitive* hmmm... the people who did it are GENIOUS! umm... im not a hacker... nope, not me

This is not hacking, It's Phreaking.
Most people that do this kind of Phreaking have little or no computer skills.
People have been doing this kind of stuff long before computers were around.

And the fault for this Is with AT&T... for not protecting their system. :mad:

This is fucked up...makes me glad I am not in possesion of a voice mailbox...I wish there was a more secure way of keeping ones self safe from this bullshit. Oh well...

Shit another thing in life to worry bout. If they is way to screw someone over they will find a way. And then the people on the other end get the shaft.

Nomad hit the nail on the head, most people think this is hacking but this is really phreaking as he said and what is commonly referred to as hacking is really CRACKING not hacking.

The phone companies don't care.. just as long as they get their dosh.

thats not a hacker its a guy pressing a buncha numbers till he gets the right "password" (probly a 4 digit number).

the guy that did that i'm sure isn't that smart, he just got lucky.

most "scam" considered to be done by "hackers" are just lucky acts of brute force number pressing.

AT&T calls me regularly to try to get me to switch back to their long-distance plan. Next time they call me, I'll use this as the reason for not going back.

MacGnG,
Far as I know "brute force" is the method that works in most cases. Far as I know, it's always been considered a method of hacking. Are you creating a tiered system of sophistication in which only "elite" hackers should be referred to as hackers?

I'm just being clear here and wondering how you see it?

Actually, this happened to me with AT&T, not the yes scam, but something to the effect of, we got our bill, and it had hundreds of long distance calls to probably every city in the US, and some in other countries. My bill was over $700, just for long distance. (None of the calls were very long) And I called AT&T, and they corrected everything, and brought my balance back down to $0, didn't even charge me for what they should have. Needless to say, I was relieved, and surprised. :)

this is just scary. It's just sad how nothing is really safe anymore. To my recollection, phone companies are usually pretty good about waiving those balances on the accounts. With something so obviously crooked as this, I dont understand why they are being so adimant.

I've had a terrible time with AT&T before, but now, they can go straight down the shitter. I hated them before, I loath them now.

ARTelevision: no i am simply stating that it isnt a "hacker" it's just some telemarketing scheme by a guy. since i(and i'm sure most) dont want to make this an argument about "hackers" i'm just saying that its just someone thats trying a scam and found a way to do it. it's no someone thats a "hacker" and did it to get money.

in this case the guy is considered a "hacker" because he is doing this; IT IS NOT a "hacker" trying to exploit something he "hacked" or in this case "phreaked" - cause it's telephones.