Emergency powers have been used to crack down on an overseas rogue dialler operator ripping off UK punters.

Baba Communications Inc - based in the Republic of Panama - secretly installed its dialler software on consumers' PCs so that they racked up massive phone bills with calls costing £1.50 a minute.

Premium rate watchdog ICSTIS received 439 complaints about the Baba Communications scam.

The watchdog fined the operator £100,000 and barred access to it for two years.

The problem of rogue dialler software was highlighted last month after BT revealed it had received more than 80,000 complaints about internet diallers.

As part of efforts to combat crooks, the telco has developed modem protection software which warns customers if their dial-up modem tries to call any numbers other than those on an "approved" list. ®

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