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It appears that my ISP has found a way to exceed my hi-speed bandwidth by sending garbage packages. Their customer care confirmed that even if just the router is switched on, it's going to keep adding up to the data-transfer and may even reach up to 20-25 GB over a period of two days! (No exaggeration – those were exactly their words)

Now, besides dragging the ISP to court for fraud, the only way to keep my data-transfer to a sane limit seems to be to switch off my router.

Is there a way to stop the data transfer between my router and ISP without switching off my router?

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Well … what router do you have? – slhck Dec 1 '11 at 13:55
zyxel 660 something , i don't remember the exact model , but I know I cannot flash it with custom firmware – Shakehar Dec 1 '11 at 13:58
I think the point is that if your router is connected to their service with an IP address allocated, and traffic is sent to that IP address, it will be counted against your quota even if it wasn't instigated by you. This is pretty common. Is your internet connection a "dialup" type service such as DSL? If so, then routers often have a dial-on-demand option, so disconnect when idle. – Paul Dec 1 '11 at 23:26
@paul will try that , but what excactly does idle define ? because if the isp keeps sending me stuff will my router really be idle ? – Shakehar Dec 2 '11 at 8:11
Usually idle means a packet passed by the router itself. The router won't pass packets that aren't in response to outgoing requests, or are otherwise permitted by incoming rules – Paul Dec 2 '11 at 8:28
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If your router is connected to their service with an IP address allocated, and traffic is sent to that IP address, it will be counted against your quota even if it wasn't instigated by you, or even accepted by the router. From the ISPs perspective, there is no difference between packets that you do accept through the router and packets you don't accept. If for example the person the IP address was previously allocated to was running a bittorrent seed or a popular website, then this could result in many failed incoming requests for the next person the IP address was allocated to.

This is pretty common.

If your internet connection a "dialup" type service such as DSL, then routers often have a dial-on-demand option, and so disconnect when idle.

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it worked :) thanks – Shakehar Dec 20 '11 at 11:33
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