BIFRANCHISE
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Telecom Fraud is the use of telecommunications products or services with no intention of payment.
Every year, businesses lose millions of dollars to telecom-related fraud and abuse. As business owners purchase more telecom services from a growing number of providers, the potential for abuse increases. In many cases, customers may not even know they are paying too much because phone bills are notoriously hard to decipher, and phony charges often hide in a sea of fine print and meaningless acronyms. ALWAYS review your phone bill for possible fraud or billing errors - it may not be much fun, but it may save a lot of trouble and money
Three most widely spread types of telecom fraud are:
1. Slamming - is switching long distance or dial-tone provider without a customer's permission. Most businesses choose a single long distance company as their default or dial-tone provider. If a local phone company gets an order from a long distance company to switch the default long distance service from one company to another, it makes the switch and the new company becomes the default long distance provider.
2. Cramming - is the practice of placing unauthorized, misleading or deceptive charges on a customer's telephone bill. In addition to charging for local telephone service, providers bill their customers for telecom services provided by other companies. Cramming charges appear on a phone bill when one of these companies sends inaccurate billing data - accidentally or intentionally - to the local telephone company. The local telephone company, in turn, bills the customer for these calls or services. Cramming can come in many forms, and it is often hard to detect unless upon close review of the telephone bills. Signs of possible cramming include:
a. charges for services that were not requested or authorized
b. charges that appear on the phone bill as service fees, service charges, membership charges or other fees
3. Jamming - an illegal practice happens when a provider subjects a customer to an arduous and often unauthorized procedure - called a PIC freeze - if the customer attempts to switch to another local toll service provider. While customers have the option of establishing a PIC freeze on their account as a way to prevent slamming, some carriers abuse the process by freezing customers' local toll accounts whether they want it or not
There are some other common telecoms frauds:
o PBX fraud to make international calls, as well as simple call-sell-operate and clip-on scams
o Subscriber fraud is highly significant but often gets hidden in the bad debt statistics
o Premium Rate Service (PRS) frauds usually involve innocent third parties (like service providers) for money laundering
o Several Mobile frauds: handset theft, SIM cloning, pre-paid fraud variants, whole distribution across national borders, interconnect frauds where service providers illegally route and terminate calls
One of the most effective approaches to improving the security of telephony systems includes conducting regular audits of:
o Station privileges and restrictions
o Voice and data calling patterns
o Public and private network routing access
o Automatic route selection
o Software defined networks
o Private switched and tandem networks
o System management and maintenance capabilities
o Auto attendant and voicemail
o Direct inward system access (DISA)
o Call centre services (ACD)
o Station message detail reporting
o Adjunct system privileges
o Remote maintenance protection
o Primary cable terminations and physical security of the site and equipment rooms
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