Vodacom has noted with concern the increasing number of SIM swop fraud attempts to its subscribers by fraudsters.
The SIM swop fraud is a new technique where fraudsters defraud unsuspecting Internet banking users.
The fraudsters pose as cellphone company representatives to trick unsuspecting customers. Once they acquire the victim’s banking details through phishing scams, the fraudsters call the network operator posing as “a customer who is requesting for a SIM swop.”
As usual, the customer’s SIM connection is cancelled, and the fraudsters gain access to the customer’s cellphone line enabling them to receive the customer’s one time Internet banking password to carry out their illegal Internet Banking transactions.
To combat the vice, Vodacom has resorted to notify its customers via SMS whenever a SIM swop request is received. This will enable the customers who had not requested for the SIM swop to respond by calling the Vodacom to stop the illegal swop.
On realizing they are being beat at their own game, a number of the fraudsters have however resorted to calling the customers to ask them to either switch off their phones for extended time periods, as they try to gain access, or ignore any SMS coming from the network operator.
“If a customer receives an SMS notification indicating they have requested a SIM swop, they should ignore any further communication and immediately contact Vodacom and we’ll take the necessary steps to protect them,” says Johan Van Graan, chief risk officer at Vodacom.
He added that Vodacom will never call its customers asking them to switch off their cellphones unless they had requested for assistance with handset-related problems.
