Expensive dial-ups

It's being sold as a victory for consumers, but instead it's the legitimization of what is essentially criminal behavior. Telecoms operators agreed yesterday on rules for regulating PRN dialer services that surreptitiously switch a dial-up internet connection from a crown or so per minute to as much as Kč 90. Týden did perhaps the best exposé on the subject, after a user unsuccessfully complained to Český Telecom about a Kč 20,000 phone bill. More attention was brought to the scam on Sat., when ePortal.cz linked one of the dialers, Telconline, to people at Český Telecom (without providing any proof). There's lots of money in this for both the operators and the scammers. If operators truly wanted to resolve the matter, they'd block dialer numbers unless customers asked for them. Czech banks routinely do this for the use of credit cards on the internet.