‘Bill Shocks’ for Solihull Residents!

A ‘Bill Shock’ is something which you most probably have experienced at some time in your life – the huge shock of an unexpectedly large telephone bill! Bill Shock is a phrase that has been coined in the wake of unexpectedly high landline, mobile and even electricity and gas bills.

However, there is a more sinister side to Bill Shock. PC PAL™, the home computer support specialists, have come across a worrying problem amongst some of its Solihull customers who are still using traditional telephone lines to ‘dial-up’ on to the Internet, rather than the newer broadband technology. The latest information released by The Office for National Statistics states that the number of dial-up internet connections has continued to decrease but still remains at 39% of all connections. Apart from being much slower than broadband, dial-up poses a number of other issues, including leaving people vulnerable to ‘Bill Shock!’ But how?

What normally happens is that the computer dials a local telephone number which then connects to the Internet at a local call-rate. At some point whilst online, if the user is not adequately protected by suitable firewall and virus/Spyware protection software, they can unwittingly install a file on to their computer which replaces the local rate number with a premium rate number. The unscrupulous hacker at the other end will then profit from their surfing time. The customer will often only realise this has happened once their bill arrives and ‘Bill Shock!’ sets in! At present, telephone providers such as BT are not interested in taking any share of the responsibility for this type of crime.

‘It can be a big problem for people still on dial-up,’ said Jat Mann of PC PAL™. ‘One of my customers recently ended up with a bill for £300 more than usual because of this! The best way to avoid the problem is to make sure you are secure when logging on. I offer a service called Secure-connect Internet which checks that all the protection software is up-to-date and working as it should. The other option, of course, is swapping to a broadband service as there is effectively no ‘telephone number’ to dial in the first place!’ In addition to this benefit broadband is also much more efficient at downloading updates to important software such as the operating system and virus protection software. Out-of-date protection software causes many problems for people for obvious reasons!

If you get stuck or are considering moving to Broadband and would like some independent advice call us on 0121 705 0010 or log on to www.pcpal.co.uk for full details of all of our services.
Safe Surfing!