ISP Abuse?

[sandrock]

While I was at work today, my dad received a phone call from our ISP (Road Runner cable) stating they have received several complaints about us. They said we are infected with a worm and are attacking other users. The guy was legit with the cable company, he gave their phone number and our IP address.

After checking out the legitimacy of the claim, I proceeded to update, lock down and run virus scans. Norton 2004 Professional found nothing on any of our 3 computers. I am also behind a router with built in firewall. I looked for files on their commonly infected files list, and found nothing.

Normally, I would be thankful they are contacting me in case of a real problem. My issue is that they are threatening to cancel our service if this "worm" isn't dealt with.

There is no worm. Not on my systems anyways. They even stated on the phone the worm is going around and has hit several other users in the area. I've done everything possible to find if we are infected, and I know we are not infected. I think they are just threatening us because we use alot of bandwidth (downloading and gaming.) I think this is bordering on abuse but I dont know if there is anything I can do. Help anyone?

[turd]

Call them and ask for specific details, like log entries from those that complained. If someone tracked you by IP and complained they usually send the complaints with log entries. Complaints without logs are suspect for various reasons. Explain the steps you follow and use. Give them details as to only the virus services, definition date and firewall you use. In this issue it is none of their business how you route. Ask them to provide written details and respond in writing. If they persist, offer to let them have a tech check your system and offer to reimburse them for their time and insist that if nothing is found that they reimburse you for yours. Also this could be someones hoax. Call roadrunner and speak directl with a rep and record all names dates and times of any future contact reguarding this issue.

Also before any of this make sure you run some spybot or adaware, make sure that you are using updated virus definations. Make sure you are MS patched for things like blaster. You sound like you know what you are doing, be sure before you go saying you are clean.

[stan03]

if they only provided the companies phone number, and YOUR IP address, i wouldn't automatically assume the call is legit. did you get a name? did you call the company again yourself to verify this? if this happened to me i would at least call them myself to verify this. and if you did do this then follow turds advice :D

[sandrock]

Yes, "Sam" called. The number was their tech support number, but of course, all support technicians were currently busy :rolleyes:

I left a pretty nasty message with them because they wasted 3+ hours of my time while I was busy downloading the worm fixes they suggested, and each one found nothing.