http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/NEWS01/712220352 By Ethan Wilensky-Lanford Monitor staff Concord Monitor December 22. 2007 Somebody called Saudi Arabia for 808 minutes from a Franklin business's phone line on New Year's Eve in 2005. Michael Bednaz, who owns the company, Hexa Interactive Communications LLC, said that it was not anybody from his office. AT&T has sued him for not paying a $14,653.62 bill, which includes $8,695.60 from that one call. Eight hundred and eight minutes is over 13 hours. The call was one of about a half dozen made overseas and billed to his business. "It's called phone fraud," said Bednaz, who does not even use AT&T for his long-distance service. "I'm 100 percent sure that it wasn't any internal personnel." His lawyer, Eric Sommers, explained that AT&T has a tariff defining a "casual user," when somebody dials a remote billing code, like 10 10 288. "Hexa never ordered the casual calling services," Sommers said. "They happened when Hexa was closed for business. They happened at 11 o'clock in the evening, 1 o'clock in the morning, to places where Hexa does not do business." It's unclear who made the calls. Hexa has a password-protected voicemail system, like most businesses in the area. "The system is not opened to the general public," Sommers said. "A sophisticated user who understands telephone systems could nonetheless hack into that system and access outside phone lines, which is apparently what happened." Bednaz filed a report for theft of services with the Franklin police in February 2006, after receiving the unusual bill. He said he contacted the FBI field office in Boston, as well, in the hopes of help resolving the issue. He has not had any luck with AT&T, which he called "the 800 pound gorilla." The company was unmoved, and filed its civil suit against Hexa on Dec. 11. __________________________________________________________________ Visit InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org/
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