I was on this website one day in February and at the bottom of my screen on the toolbar, something popped up. It said, "thank you for choosing..." it had a woman's face beside it. I though it was just a pop-up, though they are usually blocked. I didn't think anything of it. I right clicked on it to close it. When I went to turn my computer off, I noticed a new icon on the desktop--the woman's face with the word sex under it. I right clicked on it to delete it. It said that would only delete the short cut. I don't know that much about computers so when my husband got home, he deleted it from the programs. Today I received my telephone bill and there was a $38 charge for a long distance phone call. I called the phone company and this charge was for a porn internet site--the one that popped up that day. I never went to the site--I was on cakecentral.com when it popped up. If it hadn't happened when I was using the computer, I would say"Sure it just popped up!" but I know exactly when it happened. Has anyone else had this problem? The phone company says it's a legitimate charge and we'll have to pay. I can't figure out any way to contact these people.

Am I correct in assuming you have dial-up? I would definetly fight the phone company since it sounds like you have spyware on your pc.
Do you have any spyware removal tools on your pc? If not get some! There are several on the internet that are free to use and work great, like Adaware and Spybot.
Also run a virus removal program as well.
Also see what your local authorities can do to help, since what happened to you is most definetly illegal.

Yes, we do have dial up. My husband did the spyware removal after this happened along with the virus scan. I am just really upset that something like this could happen.

Are you sure you're not going to be getting a monthly bill? There's no way the phone company doesn't know how to help you reach these people. Keep calling and ask for supervisors and keep going higher until you get someone that can help you.

In my experienc w/ calls that I didn't make but were on my phone bill.... I tell the phone co. if they don't get those charges off my bill I will get rid of them & get another phone co.!! That gets them everytime!! They don't want to loose you as a costumer so they will work w/ you. Never ever let them tell you how it has to be... your the customer.. your ALWAYS right!!!!! I know they will take the charges off. When my 18 yr old son was around 12 yrs old he called a 1-900 #... I was soooo mad!!!! I didn't know about it til the bill came in. It only happened once, I called the phone co. & told them that neither me nor my hubby made this call. They asked if there was any children in the house. I said yes. They said since this was the first time that this happened they would take it off of the bill. I didn't have to fight them or anything! The bill was over $200!! There was no way I was going to pay it! So I was glad they were good to me! After that I put a long distance block on my phone. When we need to call long distance we use our cell phone, it's a lot cheaper!
Good luck! Don't let them mess w/ you!!

Maybe now would be a good time to have try and convince your husband to get a faster connection like DSL or a cable modem. You never have to worry about spyware programs that auto dial.... and it will make your connection to Cake Central WAY FASTER and we all like faster

Not all of us have access to DSL.... really! I had DSL for many years and had to go back to dial up when I moved. It's not available here and probably won't be for at least 20 years (seriously).

We don't even have access to any of the large dial ups like AOL, Earthlink, etc. Oh, we can get it if we want to pay long distance charges for each minute that we are on line. We have one choice. They are slow and never available to help when there is a problem. Their operating hours are M-F 12:00-5:00 . That's it!!

But we have the trade off of living in an absolutely beautiful area with no traffic and clean skies and I can't see my neighbor's houses. I see so many more stars in the sky than when I am in town. It's breath-taking. So, it's a trade-off... and I win.

But I dooooooo miss my DSL!! The service that I have now is absolutely horrible.

I've checked into wireless. Way too expensive!! If it ever comes down, as DSL did, I'll get it in a heartbeat. I used to pay $69 a month for DSL- gosh, you can get it for $20 now. Huge difference!!

But then again, I watched the 20/20 episode on how much easier it is to have your identity stolen with wireless. As a victim of identity theft, that scares me enough to kind of stay away until they fix that issue.

Cali4dawn..I know what you mean. I think the security of your computer depends on how secure you are able to make it. My husband and I are technically inclined, he more so than me. So we have a server that blocks alot of bad things coming through, some things still get through. We also have wireless in our house, but we have it encrypted so that if some computer punk came into our neighborhood trying to see what wireless networks he can get into- he would have a pretty hard time.
I know that not everyone can make their computer super safe, and there will always be people who if they try hard enough (and I think are just plain mean and rude) they could get into anything. I mean if you think about it even the government gets hacked and they probably have the most secure system out there (I mean they did invent the internet). Funny thing is... some of the people that get got hacking into the government will usually get hired by the government to make the system more secure.

We did get a block put on that number. I tried to contact the number that was on the bill, but it keeps making a buzzing noise like a fax #--maybe that's how an internet # sounds too. We only have one phone company here besides cell phone companies--we ususally make all long distance calls on the cell phones. The phone company would not give out any information on how to contact these people because of privacy issues! Isn't that funny? I would love to get faster internet service, but money is a little tight. I have not gone back to work since having my second child 5 months ago. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I am going to keep trying to figure out something to keep from paying those charges!

If you keep your phone cable constantly plugged into your modem, maybe unplug it when you are not using the internet. Maybe do this until you get the charges fought just in case the program that dialed out tries a different number that is programmed into it. (people can program some vicious little buggers)

My identity theft issue came from paypal issues (they even admitted they were at fault).

So the type of security I have wouldn't have mattered in that case. Until 3 years ago I actually worked in IT. I haven't kept up with the latest technology since then.

Skylar- we also only have one phone company- but you get long distance service through other
companies besides your local company. Check it out. We also use our cell phone for long distance. So we have no need for Long Distance service on the land line. If it weren't for the interenet, I would even have a landline. Cells are soooo much cheaper.

it's not just this website. every time i try and go to other cake websites, a site that says "you are entering an adult site" pops up, not once, but several times. it's a pain!!!

Sounds like your computer has been "hijacked." This may be something you want a professional to address.

Yep, you need a complete and total whack job. Very effective and sometime the only thing that works.

I've done my fair share... very easy but you have to be comfortable with it or you could lose your operating system. Take it to a professional and tell them you may want it whacked.. not just cleaned... totally and completely whacked. I had to do mine 2 weeks ago. Running much better now.

We had to do it too. Luckily we have a Dell, so I called their support team and they were very helpful. Even though our computer is still under warantee, we had to pay $250.00 because something like this is not covered by a warantee. It took a few days to get the computer back to where we were happy with it again. It's as good as new now.

I can't believe how horrible people can be these days. Crime is everywhere! Having my computer infected with viruses and spyware made me feel so violated--as if someone came into the house and stole everything!

It's true. I think every one needs to learn how to whack a computer. It takes just a couple of hours to whack and reload everything. And people are having to have it done more and more often due to this craziness out there. And it's $250 a pop. That's a lot of cake toys!!

Thanks so much for all of your comments. It makes me feel better just "talking" about it. Thanks for the tip about disconnecting the phone line while not using the computer!

Wow...I had no idea this stuff was so common. The pop-up sounds like something that could be associated with messenger. I've read about this at GRC.

http://grc.com/stm/shootthemessenger.htm

I use the programs on this site to periodically test my computer. Shields Up! is great.

http://www.grc.com/default.htm

It also keeps me up to date on all the new security issues.
I hope this helps some.

Thanks! I'll take a look at those sites.

CakeCentral.com will NEVER use popup ads. We are a firm believer in NO POPUPS or pop-unders.

If you are getting popups while visiting this site it is most likely from spyware on your PC. For more information on spyware and links to spyware removal tools please visit:

Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Thank you Jackie!

all of this sounds like the virus our computer had last year, it finally killed the computer..... Sorry this all happened!!!!!!!

That's awful about your computer. I never realized so many people had these problems.