Fifteen customers of a small British Web hosting company have had small amounts of money unlawfully charged to their credit card accounts. The money has nominally been paid to a Russian company called Incomtel.

The amounts taken are between £5 and £10. All the accounts were charged in Russian roubles. All fifteen customers had the money refunded by their banks or credit card companies.

Some users claim they have had money taken from a card account which had been used online only in transactions with the Web hosting company, Gloucester- based Fasthosts - and they are not happy.

One victim said Fasthosts had made no effort to keep customers informed. "We can forgive them for being hacked," he said, "but not to leave us, the clients, without knowing anything about it."

We too have run into the communication problems with Fasthosts.

The company has declined our invitations to comment on the concerns raised by some of their customers. The company will not speak to us over the phone, and has not replied to emails we sent. Apparently they have been forwarded to the "general manager" but no-one seems to know, or be willing to say who he or she is.

Another victim told us: "They [Fasthosts] are complete muppets."

Incomtel itself has denied all knowledge of the transactions, claiming payments never arrived at its account. It says that someone is using the company name fraudulently and has referred the matter to the security services. ®

Related Links

An excerpt from a usenet thread on the subject.

Related Story

Fear drives net security spend