Fraudsters taking advantage of consumer-friendly cellphone policy

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A regulation meant to make it easier for Canadians to change cell phone carriers is also making them vulnerable to scam artists trying to steal personal information.

Since 2007, telecom companies have been required to let customers take their phone number to a new carrier without approval from their existing provider.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) policy is meant to facilitate competition between carriers – but it has also had an unintended consequence.

Fraudsters can call a service provider and ask to open a new account using an existing phone number they claim to be their own. They then use their target’s personal information – which they obtain through a variety of ways – to impersonate them.

Once they have control of the phone number, the scam artist can then gain access to various apps and accounts belonging to their target.

Even police officers are susceptible to the fraud.

In December, West Vancouver Police spokesperson Const. Kevin Goodmurphy told NEWS 1130 he was a victim of the so-called “phone porting scam” and nearly lost tens of thousands of dollars.

He said he had no idea something was wrong until he got a text informing him someone was trying to port his number to a new company. When he was on the phone with his provider, he checked his banking app “and noticed that a large amount of money had been moved into an account that I had not set up and knew nothing about,” he said at the time.

“So I quickly got on with my bank and they had confirmed that someone had gone into my banking, created a new account and had moved a large sum of money out of my account.”

Goodmurphy was able to stop the transaction in time. But it was close.

In October 2019, the CRTC sent a letter to carriers asking how the phone porting scam was happening and what they were doing to address it.

Rogers, Telus and Bell confirmed to NEWS 1130 they are aware of the issue and taking steps to address it.

Some carriers allow customers to request “port protection,” which prevents a number from being moved without the user’s consent.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), which administers the CRTC regulations, said it is working with the carriers to improve security.

“As with any matter pertaining to customers’ privacy and security, our members take the issue of number porting fraud very seriously,” a CWTA spokesperson said in an email. “Individual service providers have made modifications to their own internal processes and the industry is in the midst of making changes to the number porting system that will add new levels of verification while continuing to meet the CRTC’s requirements. We do not publicize these measures, as doing so might give criminals information they can use to try to circumvent them.”

With files from Sonia Aslam

 

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