Ever Increasing Liability ?

[Worried]

A friend has managed to catch this thing and has got rid of it with Brute Force Uninstall.
He worried that in 10 years time MBS will track him down and claim he owes them thousands of pounds. Claims he was doing some slightly dodgy browsing but had no idea he had subscibed to anything or agreed for this nasty software to be put on his machine. Tried to go back to the site to Cancel the alledged subscription in order to limit any alledged liability to £39.99 but couldn't get on due to some "Active X" problem and is naturally relucant to persue that approach any further. Could these scum-bags ever track him down and make him pay ? I understand that MBS has all the Ip addresses. Could they get internet service providers (Virgin) to hand over his contact details ?

[helpplz]

Theres been posts on people not removing there mbs software properly and forgetting to cancel their membership and when it reinstalled itself they were charged only for the subscrition which they never ended( and werent charged for the £25 a week if you dont pay). Am sure Virgin knows all about MBS and 'IF' they went to court to get your friends details am sure Virgin may have a good defence.Am sure trading standards know that mbs are a scam but dont have enough evidence to prove it.

[ForumFriend]

Worried, I think you can reassure your friend in the following way:  IF MBS ever tracked him down (and through his IP is very unlikely - usually a court order is required and, hey, we are not talking big money here, are we?) they would not want to go to Court.  It is very interesting that, as far as can be seen from the forums, nobody has yet been taken to court by MBS.  Lots of threats, maybe - but no action.  In my opinion, they do not want their business methods to be scrutinised by a court as the probable outcome is that the judge would find against them and this would set a precedent and, ultimately, their methodology would be outlawed.  In any event, unless he provided any personal details, they do not have anybody against whom they can lodge their debt.

Of course (and many others have observed this) this is a fundamental flaw of their billing system, from the perspective of the service provider.

[Andy M]

Slightly off-topic, but I've not heard of anyone who is telling people how to remove the MBS software being taken to court either. I've certainly had no approaches from MBS.

As far as I can see, it's all empty threats. Not to be complacent, but not overly worried, either.

[ForumFriend]

Well, Andy, going to court would cost them money, wouldn't it?  And that would eat into Mr. Bateup's green fees.  I rather think MBS only like to make money, not to spend it 

[Worried]

Thank you all for your replies.
So if MBS are so averse to litigation why are anti-virus firms afraid of MBS ?
Surely virus/malware should be defined by the behaviour of the software rather than whether the people who wrote it are a limited company or not ?
Aren't anti-virus firms in some way in breech of their contracts by failing to clean up a known virus ?

[ForumFriend]

The evidence, albeit anecdotal, seems to point towards MBS relying upon intimidation to force antivirus producers to err on the side of caution.  I suspect that a lawyer sends such companies a letter in the name of MBS warning the companies that MBS may be forced to take legal action, etc etc., or similar wording, if the companies continue to flag MBS software up as virus, trojan, or similar.  Since as things stand the methodology hasn't been challenged in court, and since to date no evidence has been produced to show MBS software being downloaded without 'consent' to their terms and conditions, MBS are relying upon the argument that the appearance of their software upon any computer has happened *legitimately*. 

There have, during the time I've been following this, been a number of instances where people state vehemently that they have been truly baffled about the appearance of MBS pop ups on their computers, computers which are not accessed by others, and where the users have never sought out porn sites.  So question marks hover over the installation of software, at least in some cases.  Sadly, however, no evidence has yet emerged to refute MBS' claims.