I sense a new dialler trojan in the making...

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Yes it would be. Bank charges can be levied because they are specified in a contract that you have previously signed. That is why they are penalties and not fines: you have agreed to them. You have not agreed to a

Me? There are a fair few upset people on this thread, but I'm not one of them

I'm afraid, chaps, that companies or individuals are not allowed to bill unagreed amounts for services whether or not they are authorised or not. The reason overdraft charges can be made is that the amount of the charge is either specified in the contractual terms or the terms say something to the effect that the bank will give notice of the amount of such charges to the customer from time to time.

A parallel situation would be if I found your bicycle outside your house and borrowed it for a day, bringing it back of course. Agreed, it is wrong to do so without being authorised, but you could not bill me

Edited by Kayak (Thu 28-Sep-06 20:50:20)

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I'm afraid, chaps, that companies or individuals are not allowed to bill unagreed amounts for services whether or not they are authorised or not.

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That's not strictly true, but in any case you're missing the point. You're getting hung up on some notion of agreed charges, which has to be based on the provision of agreed services. The testing service isn't contractual nor is it agreed; you have no right to use it. BT would be well within their rights to bill you for the use of the service in order to cover their costs incurred as a result of your misuse. It would be up to you to prove that (a) you hadn't misused the service (difficult given that you had) and (b) that the costs were unfair in some way.

Of course we could take a different tack and point out that BT could pursue a criminal case against you for misuse of the telecommunications systems. Then take a civil action against you for losses incurred. Then probably cut off your line.

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A parallel situation would be if I found your bicycle outside your house and borrowed it for a day, bringing it back of course.

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Bad anaolgy: taking without consent is theft, whether or not you brought it back (or intended to). I'd then sue the pants off you for loss of earnings, grief, etc. etc. that I had suffered as a result of you depriving me of my bike.

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BT would be well within their rights to bill you for the use of the service in order to cover their costs incurred as a result of your misuse. It would be up to you to prove that (a) you hadn't misused the service (difficult given that you had) and (b) that the costs were unfair in some way.

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Aaaargh.

Jolly good. So I'll bill you

Edited by Kayak (Thu 28-Sep-06 21:55:42)

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It is up to the person wanting money to prove that the money is owed and that the amount is fair.

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Exactly - You make use of a BT service (which they can prove), they charge you for it,

I'm sorry, am I missing something here?
If BT don't want unauthorised use of 17070, why not password protect it?
Or, as the charging scheme would require manual input anyway (somebody has to tell the billing computer not to charge for 17070 on a particular date, as a BT engineer may be testing the line), and this will have to happen every time it's used properly, why not just have it blocked at all times, and enable it prior to an engineer call out?

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Exactly - You make use of a BT service (which they can prove), they charge you for it,

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If BT don't want unauthorised use of 17070, why not password protect it?

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They have in fact password protected some of the service. I don't know why they haven't protected all of it, but as you say it is the obvious solution rather than spending a lot more than

I'm finding all this hard to swallow. Someone using 17070 seven times a day (on average) for a whole year ?

And BT charging for a service that starts with a "1", without any prior warning that a charge will be made ? I'm sure OFCOM would have something to say.

Sounds like scaremongering to me.