ADSL and Club Blinko

[joddle]

A warning to those of you who have broadband wi fi in your prroperties- especialy in Spain.

We have just been warned of Club Blinko which is a system which can cost you a heafty packet - especially as you are unlikely to know you are a victim until you get an unusually high broadband bill. It affects mostly those using USB dongles and mobile networks and can affect PCs and mobile phones as well. Basically you receive messages but YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THEM even if you don't want them.

Appararntly there is little you can do to prevent this -and it appears to be legal and uses a system of PUSH messages which are sent by the organisation but then YOU pay to get them. A close friend has just ben stung for 70e from an account supposed to be a fixed tarrif of just 9euros per month!! The telecoms companies seem unwilling to do much about it either.

The big issue for renters is that a guest could activate this on your ADSL acccount without you knowing - BEWARE and check those bills.

[pepsipuss]

Thanks for the warning Joddle. This sounds like a more high tech version of a scam that was running down here a few years ago. You would get a phone call allegedly from the post office telling you that you had a parcel to collect and you had to ring a certain number to organise delivery. If you rang the number (which of course turned out to be a premium number) they kept you hanging on for ages on various pretexts and you ended up with a huge phone bill.

Telefonica were, needless to say, totally unhelpful and unsympathetic.