Time to Ring Changes: Sim Card Fraud and Network Security
Readers of this 'blog might recall that I was interviewed last summer in connection with one of the scourges associated with our reliance on smartphones; namely SIM fraud.
It involves scammers posing as mobile 'phone users and convincing mobile networks to swap their numbers to devices which they control.
They then hijack connected online accounts and steal money from victims.
As I told the Sunday Times, the number of such SIM swap and "port out" offences was not only on the increase but had prompted individuals to turn to myself and my colleagues at JMW Solicitors to seek redress for what they believed was lax security on the part of the major mobile networks.
In the months since, official figures demonstrate that the problem has got even worse.
A report issued in late March by UK Finance - the trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector - revealed that overall mobile banking crime cost consumers £59.7 million between 2015 and the end of 2020.
The research established that the total losses last year (£21.6 million) were more than three times the sum in 2017 (£6.5 million).
Furthermore, the 10,155 cases reported last year were more than the previous two years combined.
Worryingly, only seven per cent (£500,000) of all the money actually taken is ever recovered.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, our caseload has continued to rise as a result.
I've been telling Jon Douglas, a reporter on one of the BBC's most popular consumer affairs programmes - 'You and Yours' on Radio Four - that inadequate security among the mobile companies continues to be one of the recurrent themes in the matters we handle.
As the individuals who have turned to us for help show these are crimes which create very real anxieties and significant financial loss.
Two of our clients chose to speak to 'You and Yours' about their experiences.
One was a gentleman robbed of £4,000 and left unable to use his 'phone while undergoing cancer treatment. Another was a woman offered only £50 compensation after she lost more than £14,000 to fraudsters a fortnight before Christmas.
Whilst banks have reimbursed customers for their losses, it is disappointing to find that networks appear unwilling to fully accept the legal responsibilities which they have to safeguard customers' data.
Instead of mobile 'phone companies acknowledging how their procedures have allowed scammers to profit, it often falls to those affected to prove precisely how security measures have been at fault.
I believe that it effectively adds insult to injury and should no longer be the case.