In addition, new data services including short messaging and Internet access have made individual subscriptions more valuable than when only voice was available. Fraudsters can get more bang for the buck from one individual account, a fact that may be drawing more people into the fraud industry. Even with prepaid, which is supposed to prevent most bad credit issues, fraudsters are simply using stolen credit cards to charge minutes, defrauding the credit card companies as well as wireless carriers. Carriers are even discovering extensive internal fraud rings in their companies. Fraudsters are not just recruiting, they are sending their own people to the company as new hires.
People can stay on the network for three or four months before they are detected.
That's really affecting their bottom line. In the case of the subscription fraud and the new forms of identity theft, the burden falls squarely on the carriers, Strong said. I think carriers can be very effective if they are willing to put more stringent measures in place. Although vendors are developing new applications to help carriers identify and track both at-large and potential fraudsters, many of the measures that need implementation are staff training and basic internal subscription policy changes. Train them in a manner that they can identify a potential fraudster.