[TelstraClear] is my phone line being hacked?

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djpaubes

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#16178 27-Sep-2007 19:07

A an old friend of the family has had 0900 numbers racked up on her bill. Shes a very old lady and has let it fly but this time she cant afford to pay the bill. She has a cordless phone and has her lan line with telstra.. They have put a block on the phone and taking some extra security measures around the house.

But I've heard of this happening before where the next door neibour had dacked there line and it took a specialist from the cops to catch the guy 6 months later.. we have our suspions but its always possbile....?

Telstra have been really good about it. They cant refund the calls as she often has family to stay so cant garrentee they didnt made the calls. Of course we have approached everyone but no one is owning up.

The number being dialed is an 0900 Astrology service at 20 bucks per minute!

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rscole86

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#88372 27-Sep-2007 19:11

It could also be a PC that is doing the dialing here.

It is a bit old hat now, but that use to happen a lot in the past.

djpaubes

394 posts

Ultimate Geek

#88381 27-Sep-2007 19:40

she doesnt have a PC.... I was thinking about those applications that use to dail out international numbers on a dial up connection.. but yeah no pc in the house, if thats what you meant.

KiwiOverseas66

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#88385 27-Sep-2007 20:09

djpaubes:
She has a cordless phone and has her lan line with telstra..

hmmm...my first thought was a dialer too - but with no pc...

She wouldn't happen to have an old analogue cordless? I think most digital cordless phones have to be registered with a base - plus they might have anything from 3-6 channels to choose from (or maybe some sort of auto frequency hopping). Some of the old analogue cordless phones, however, only had 2 channels to chose from - and no base registration - so it was very easy to pick up someone elses base station. We had a similar thing being able to pick up the neighbours base station (until we changed to digital cordless) as we both had the same model analogue cordless (Uniden).

just a thought....

n00dy

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#88391 27-Sep-2007 20:22

another known scam is where a neighbour (of less intergrity) befriends single elderly people then they call over from time to time and while there ask to use the phone, and they then rack up calls. There have been reported incidents of this before.

geekiegeek

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#88413 27-Sep-2007 21:43

get a toll bar with a pin.

kdn

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#88538 28-Sep-2007 16:24

djpaubes:
She has a cordless phone and has her lan line with telstra..

Theres your problem mate.. someone will be sitting outside her house with a cordless handset and getting a dial tone (of the nearest cordless base station). Its easy to do.. the old cordless phones had only two channels.

Buy her a new DECT cordless phone, only the supplied handset can work with the base station with DECT.. that eliminates the possibly of someone being able to make non toll calls or eavesdrop if you just toll bar the line.

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djpaubes

394 posts

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#88542 28-Sep-2007 16:29

Ahr yeah that was my thought too, so they can get a dial tone..

Cheers,

KiwiOverseas66

173 posts

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#88545 28-Sep-2007 17:03

kiwioverseas66;
djpaubes:
She has a cordless phone and has her lan line with telstra.

She wouldn't happen to have an old analogue cordless? I think most
digital cordless phones have to be registered with a base - plus they
might have anything from 3-6 channels to choose from (or maybe some
sort of auto frequency hopping). Some of the old analogue cordless
phones, however, only had 2 channels to chose from - and no base
registration - so it was very easy to pick up someone elses base
station.

kdn:
djpaubes:
She has a cordless phone and has her lan line with telstra.

Theres your problem mate.. someone will be sitting outside her house with a cordless handset and getting a dial tone (of the nearest cordless base station). Its easy to do.. the old cordless phones had only two channels.
Flamer.

sacre bleu! deja vu??

exportgoldman

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#88963 1-Oct-2007 19:24

This is so easy to do for someone with a little knowledge, and very hard if not impossible to detect.

I won't go into details, but you can easily tap into the grey 'pill' boxes anywhere up or down your street with a standard phone and make calls on someone elses line easy as pie, and no one would ever know (unless they saw it took place.)

It's also very nearly impossible to prove, or protect against. Good luck with the charges, what time were the calls made?

Perhaps you have some recourse there, if she was not at home, or asleep etc.

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djpaubes

394 posts

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#88967 1-Oct-2007 19:54

We are now pretty sure its someone that does the house cleaning making the calls and they have direct access to the phone. There is now a toll bar on the phone... also the bills were been taking so they are being sent to another address.
pretty interesting really.