Talk:Micro Bill Systems

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Untitled[edit]

I had this visus on my system since December 2007, but its disappeared in the last couple of days. It's gone from my desktop and my start menu, and that infuriating window doesn't open any more. 81.152.218.127 (talk) 08:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I know why that is now. Thank you OFT! 81.152.223.191 (talk) 08:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BIASED.[edit]

Even though this article states facts, it states them in a biased way. There is no mention of the heavy handed tactics they use, their scare tactics or even the massive internet controversy over their billing system. (We can use your IP to find out where you live!" etc. The only reference to this is their billing system which is presented in a very MBS-like way. It's almost like an employee of MBS wrote this themselves under guidance of lawyers. If several anti virus companies deem it a virus, then surely THAT deserves a mention?

They have no happy customers at all, no one vouching for them. The ONLY publicity they have is bad publicity. To be presenting this company in a good light is not right at all. 82.31.148.170 (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

REWRITTEN.[edit]

Reorganized and rewrote the article, striving for a balance between consumer complaints and the company position. Also removed some press-release-like language, and a great deal of text whose purpose seemed to be to convince consumers that the records of their sign-up and access to MBS client sites were so complete and incontestable that it would be pointless to argue about paying. Added more sources and removed the {{sources}} tag. --CliffC (talk) 13:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

News report[edit]

Parts of this article seem to me to still read more like a piece of journalism rather than an encyclopedia entry, so I think it is still in need of a rewrite. It also appears to emit certain information such as the fact that MBS seems to have reneged on the undertakings that were agreed following the Office of Fair Trading review earlier this year. This is certainly the case if my recent experience with them is anything to go by, and I'd like to share that experience.

I'm afraid it isn't just gambling and pornographic sites that can cause your system to download an MBS bill, and I know of at least one site that doesn't give you an eleven page licence agreement. I got an MBS bill from topix.com after a link was added to a Wikipedia article last week (16 December) and I was foolish enough to click on it. Having not heard of the site before, I checked it out to see whether it was spam, and almost instantly after clicking on the site a dialogue box containing a string of code appeared on screen with an 'OK' prompt (no cancel option available). I tried closing it, but within a few moments an MBS window had opened. This was locked for five minutes and I was warned that if I tried to close it the timer would be reset. The bill also crashed my computer leading to a blue screen of death. Now whenever I start up my system, I get an MBS window which will lead to a BSoD if I so much as move the mouse while the lock is active. Today the lock has been extended to ten minutes - certainly in excess of the 60 seconds that the company agreed to. By now I've had mroe than 20 MBS windows and more than ten that have been locked.

I know this all counts as original research and therefore can't be included in the article, but I suspect I'm not the only one this has happened to. Therefore, I intend giving this article my serious attention in the new year to see what I can do with it. At the very least it needs to be made even more encyclopedic, and it could do with updating if the information is available. TheRetroGuy (talk) 21:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never visited (as far as I know) topix.com, but right now Wikipedia has at least 200 links to the site, so that's worrisome. Topix seems to be a news, etc. aggregator - alexa.com says

Topix is the leading news community on the Web, connecting people to the information and discussions that matter to them in every U.S. town and city. A Top 10 online newspaper destination (comScore, March 2008), the site links news from 50,000 sources to 360,000 lively user-generated forums. Topix also works with the nation's major media companies to grow and engage their online audiences through forums, classifieds, publishing platforms and RSS feeds.

I'm wondering if you could have picked this up instead at a site that topix links to. Do the popups name the site you supposedly owe money to?

As to a rewrite, the problem I had doing the earlier rewrite mentioned in "REWRITTEN" immediately above was finding reliable sources beyond Pollitt's articles in the Guardian. There was plenty of material around to describe the disruptive behavior of the MBS/Platte operation, but most was in the form of victim experiences written up on someone's blog and thus not usable. Maybe there's some more now that the problem is better known.

I think it's disgraceful and disgusting that the Office of Fair Trading can't find a way to put an absolute stop to these practices instead of simply limiting the number of interruptions. These comments of course apply to the similar case of Movieland and the similar response of the Federal Trade Commission in my own country. --CliffC (talk) 00:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just spent a couple of hours surfing the web for some info on this subject and have to agree with you there's not a lot of reliable sources out there. Reading through the article again I think you've done a good job with what is available. I also agree that the OFT should take stronger action against this company. Perhaps they will if they receive enough complaints.

The pop-up window first appeared as I was checking out this edit which is what made me think Topix.com was the source. But I see from the article on Topix.net that anyone can add anything to the site, so perhaps someone had added a malicious link or redirect or something. Sadly I didn't have time to see much before my system crashed. As for the 200-odd links to Topix, I'd say Wikipedia is probably better off without them.

Interestingly there are no details about the site I supposedly owe money to, and knowing how Platte/MBS works, I'm not about to get in touch with them to find out. Instead I'll be taking my PC along to an expert in the next few days and getting them to remove Platte's rather nasty piece of software. TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sexxxpassport[edit]

Have created a redirect to this article from Sexxxpassport after being told that MBS has been linked to the site. This article appears to support what I was told. There are also several Google hits for Sexxxpassport. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 12:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mysexworld has also been an MBS linked site. TheRetroGuy (talk) 13:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pornosvindel[edit]

I'm not sure exactly what this article says since it's written in Norwegian, or whether E24 (which seems to be a newsmagazine) is a reliable source. For what it's worth, here is a link to article "Advarer mot pornosvindel", which Google translates as "Warns against porn scam". A later paragraph is translated as:

Be careful

Consumer Council is particularly concerned, since the bill loads down to the Norwegians' computers through an operation that is confusingly similar to a regular windows update.

--CliffC (talk) 20:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shutdown in the UK[edit]

About time. Nice to see a positive outcome from this situation. I've updated the parameters on this to mid importance since this has affected a lot of people. I've also added it to the Computer Security project as I note from reading the Guardian article on the shutdown that there are security issues - ie, obtaining home addresses from IP's, etc. TheRetroGuy (talk) 16:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also adding to WikiProject Internet. TheRetroGuy (talk) 17:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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