South African mobile phone operator Vodacom has cautioned customers against SIM swap fraud attempts, which are on the rise according to the company
Fraudsters using this technique defraud Internet banking users and request a SIM swap from network operator once they have acquired the victim’s banking details and other personal information.
Vodacom chief risk officer Johan Van Graan said, “To protect customers from SIM swap fraud, Vodacom has launched a policy of notifying customers via SMS whenever a SIM swap attempt is made.
“If a customer receives an SMS notification indicating that they have requested a SIM swap, they should immediately contact us. We will take steps to protect them,” he added.
Fraudsters have recently resorted to calling customers to try to convince them to switch off their cellphones and ignore the SMS from the network operator.
“We’ll never call our customers and ask them to switch off their cellphones unless they have requested assistance with a handset-related issue that requires their cellphones to be switched off,” said Graan.
“If they’ve not logged a fault with us, they should be suspicious of any requests to switch off their cellphone.”
