"Fraudsters have begun cold-calling householders to accuse them of copyright infringement online and threaten them with court action, an ISP has reported.
The development comes soon after the law firm Davenport Lyons won a widely-reported £16,000 default court award for a videogames firm from an alleged filesharer. Davenport Lyons followed up the default judgement by telling newspapers that it had identified 25,000 more targets that it would take to court if they did not pay a £300 settlement.
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Small ADSL provider UKFSN received a support call yesterday from an elderly customer who was concerned after being contacted by a scammer on Tuesday.
Accused of illegally sharing music, UKFSN's subscriber was savvy enough to refuse to give any details, and turned the tables on the caller, demanding to know where they were calling from. When they refused to provide credentials he hung up.
UKFSN's Jason Clifford posted some details of the incident on a broadband forum. He told El Reg: "They told my customer they had proof he had been filesharing illegally. The important thing to remember is that no ISP would give out a phone number in a legal case."
Two enforcement patterns have been recently adopted by rights holders on an unprecedented scale as they intensify their battle against illegal filesharing in the UK."
