But cellular-phone crooks do. Both times, the college student received phone bills more than six times larger than normal. After verification, his service provider, Piltel, swallowed the cost of the calls and twice changed his number. These companies are losing both customers and millions of dollars in revenue.
Criminals strike in a number of ways.
In May, Bangkok police arrested two foreigners who used stolen identity documents to subscribe to phone services. Philippine cellular phone provider Globe Telecom was victimized by a syndicate using a similar scheme. The company was forced to write off the bad debt and lop 20,000 false or bad accounts off its 68,000-customer base. Mobile phones using analog systems broadcast their identification data over the radiowaves, offering plenty of opportunities to criminals with the right equipment. With a scanner, the crooks can pluck phone numbers out of the air and program them into another handset, cloning a customer's service.