Dial Through Fraud – have you heard about it?

The chances are that if you have heard about Dial Through Fraud it’s because you have been victim to it.

Dial Through Fraud costs the UK £1.2b a year, globally £40b a year and it is on the increase.  But what is it?

Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) are telephone systems used by businesses to communicate both internally and externally. Fraudsters target these systems to make calls to premium rate/international numbers. Victims are liable for the fraudulent transactions, which can cause significant financial harm or even bankruptcy. To read full article from Action Fraud please…

Small business are the main targets for this fraud with evening, weekends and holidays the peak times when you are most at risk as the fraudsters strike due to fewer businesses using their phone systems at these times to notice that all the lines are busy so unfortunately you want know you have been a victim until the phone bill arrives.

What is even worse is that even though you didn’t make or authorise the calls, they where made from your system and you get billed form them. Technically you rang them, so you pay for the calls.

How do they access your phone?

A good question, the fraudsters first hack into your phone system, then hack your passcode to access your system. Once they are in they the calls (usually to international/premium numbers) are made from your exchange and your bill starts raking up.

Click here to listen to this article about Dial Through Fraud – speaking to a victim who was ‘lucky’ she only had a £5000 bill to pay! 

There good news is there are things you can do to protect yourself and prevent dial through fraud happening to you for details click here.

The really, really good news is that our clients who have phone systems from us already have this in place at no extra charge giving them the peace of mind that they will never have any nasty surprises on their phone bills.

Did you know that our phone systems are very secure and let you set your usage limit, when you get to 85% you are sent a message informing you of this, if you reach 100% usage the service shuts down. This feature allows you to customise your phone system to your requirements.

Why not ring us on 01226 704610 to discuss your requirements – we are happy to help