being charged for premium services on my mobile broadband

[caspergriswold]

Hi, have spoken to the guru's but i was hoping someone could give me some more details before i talk to fraud tomorrow and the person couldn't really give me much help

I checked my mobile broadband today and have been charged by two companies for about 20 pounds. These companies are payforit and Net real solutions.  for premium calls and games. She seemed to think that clicking on pop-ups will automatically get these charged to you which sound very iffy seeing i would have thought you would have to press accept or put in some details. At the end of the day i don't play games at all. I'm on a laptop, not a phone and i don't actually know my o2 broadband number until i checked it tonight. I would never give out my broadband number because i don't know it and id give out my mobile phone number if i had to The only people who know it are 02 and me finding it tonight. Now she insists my computer has not been hacked but can't block anymore charges which is about as much use as a chocolate teapot really so how the hell did they get the number without hacking my computer, and if they can do this, isn't the whole system totally insecure?

[thirteen21]

Hi,

Sorry, I am a bit confused here .... it was my understanding that there currently are no protocols to allow a website to gather or carry information about a handset's IEMI, phone number or owner's contact details merely by accessing a web-page unless you actually put one or all of those details in yourself. If this is incorrect then can someone please direct me to site which explains the technical detail of how this is done ..

Thanks

[MI5]

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@thirteen21 wrote:

Hi,

Sorry, I am a bit confused here .... it was my understanding that there currently are no protocols to allow a website to gather or carry information about a handset's IEMI, phone number or owner's contact details merely by accessing a web-page unless you actually put one or all of those details in yourself. If this is incorrect then can someone please direct me to site which explains the technical detail of how this is done ..

Thanks

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I don't think the IMEI can be harvested but it would seem quite easy to set up a website that will harvest your phone number.

I don't know all the technicalities but this is a useful reference site http://payforitsucks.co.uk/

[thirteen21]

Hi M15,

Thanks for the reply.

I know that a few years ago (2012?) o2 were in trouble for transmitting a mobile's number in a header - but this was fixed pretty sharpish following objections from their users and now I believe they no longer do this (?)

If they don't do it - then I am pretty sure there is no other way that the information can get over the internet.

I am open to persuasion about this but I have searched long and hard on various coding sites to find a way that works but have so far been unsuccessful. Usually, if this sort of trick can be done then there will be a 'friendly'  site that does it - you go on there - it tells you your number ... (like the "your IP is ..." "your location is ..." sites that sprung up when this type of detection became common) but there aren't any.

The payforitsucks site is very good and very interesting but does not really address the issue of HOW this happens ... which is not at all clear to me.