Posted on 05/14/2022 9:47:58 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Dan Clark says his future changed in an instant as his life savings of more than $700,000 vanished.
“My phone said, ‘No service, SIM card.’ And I didn’t even know what a SIM card was,” Clark said.
By the time he found out, it was too late. His phone number had been transferred to a crook’s device, and Clark’s accounts, including his proceeds in investments in cryptocurrency, were wiped out.
“I lost everything in a matter of a few hours,” he said. “Life’s work, a few hours.”
Clark quickly learned he was a victim of a SIM swap, a sophisticated scheme the FBI warns is sweeping the country. In 2021, the FBI received 1,611 SIM swapping complaints representing $68 million in losses to consumers.
The FBI explains that crooks trick mobile carriers to transfer your SIM, basically your phone number, to a device they control — either by impersonating you or, in some cases, paying off a phone carrier employee.
The FBI has warned of criminals gaining control of cell phone SIM cards from unknowing victims and stealing their personal information, including bank account and financial app details.
These scams netted criminals $68 million in 2021 alone, the FBI said, and it received more than 1,611 complaints. Compare that to $12 million in losses in 2018 to 2020.
Man loses $82K in fake car sale; BBB warns of other scams The FBI is urging the public to be aware of suspicious emails and not to advertise investments in cryptocurrency or other financial assets.
“Once the SIM is swapped, the victim’s calls, texts and other data are diverted to the criminal’s device,” the FBI said. “This access allows criminals to send ‘Forgot Password’ or ‘Account Recovery’ requests to the victim’s email and other online accounts associated with the victim’s mobile telephone number.
Clark’s case is currently under investigation by the FBI. T-Mobile confirms his SIM was swapped numerous times — even after he regained access to his phone and asked for an alert on his account to stop swaps.
T-Mobile has not responded to requests for comment from WFLA.
Clark is still hopeful he’ll get his money back. In the meantime, he wants to warn you.
“I want to protect other people from this. It’s a crazy world that we live in. It’s a very fast-paced world that we live in, a very fast-paced electronic world. And like I said, $1,600 cases last year to $68 million, and I am a statistic of that.”
The FBI recommends individuals take the following precautions:
• Do not advertise information about financial assets, including ownership or investment of cryptocurrency, on social media websites and forums.
• Do not provide your mobile number account information over the phone to representatives that request your account password or pin. Verify the call by dialing the customer service line of your mobile carrier.
• Avoid posting personal information online, such as mobile phone number, address, or other personal identifying information.
• Use a variation of unique passwords to access online accounts. Be aware of any changes in SMS-based connectivity.
• Use strong multi-factor authentication methods such as biometrics, physical security tokens, or standalone authentication applications to access online accounts.
• Do not store passwords, usernames, or other information for easy login on mobile device applications.
I’ve been using Yubi Keys for 10 or more years. But how do you get it to work on your phone?
• Do not conduct any business with people in or from India, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, or any other 3rd World s-hole.
• Do not send any employment, academic, or other identity related information to people in or from India, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, or any other 3rd World s-hole.
There is no H1B visa category allowing any foreigner to be working as an IT Recruiter in the USA; therefore, they are frauds from the get-go.
We have had pretty good luck with the REVVL 5G phones that T-Mobile was giving away last year. It came with twice as much memory and better cameras than the REVVL V+ 5G they have been giving away this year. Mine technically is “defective” the volume on calls is much higher than my wife's phone so that everyone near me can hear both sides of the conversation. It has barely less volume than when using it on speaker phone. It can be turned down, but I am a little hard of hearing and have tinnitus, so it is helpful to me.
Ironically, BECU’s banking app quit working on my old Samsung which served me well for over 7 years. I was told that my phone's operating system was vulnerable to security issues and was no longer supported. I didn't want to upgrade, but the free phone is vastly superior in most ways to the old Samsung.
Thanks
I’m liking the Revv so far as well.
Yep, those ‘domestic terrorists’ parents are a real drag on their time... /s
I didn’t either. It could all be an excuse for some Draconian regulations to track people who use burner phones better.
This is 100% on T-Mobile.
Any attorney should be able to make them cough up the lost money. After that T-Mobile has the clout to get law enforcement really interested in this case.
Of course if the victim did anything stupid, like give his password to anyone else, it is right back on him.
Current value would be: 29,564,790.00. 🙂
The Federal government Is fond of using your phone for verifying your identity when logging into their USA jobs website.
iPhones have a sim
Does the swap happen at the store then?
What is that?
More and more people are doing it. They also keep nude pictures of themselves stored in their phones. As long as there are fools, there will be those who take advantage og them.
My housekeeper had an opening and asked me if I knew anyone who needed cleaning services.
One of her clients had her and her husbands accounts wiped out - money from bank account, savings account and money market accounts were transferred overseas to another account then I think transferred again so it was untraceable and gone.
Not sure how someone got access but they did and the family is wiped out. I don’t think they can get it back.
I recently signed up for a credit card at a home improvement store that would only be used on gardening, lawn, fence and upgrades supplies so that it would be easy to keep up with expenses on our home.
I tried to purchase something online and immediately got a ‘fraudulent activity’ zing. I then got a text that I needed to send a 5 second video of my face so they could be sure it was me. I called the number on the back of the card and was told, yes, that is correct. I did find out the information was being routed to the Philippines to God Knows Who and had no idea how my personal information was going to be used and the cc co refused to speculate.
I refused to do it and the next month, they canceled my credit card saying my 819 credit score had dropped so much in one month because I had opened a credit card and they were closing my account.
The only credit card I opened was...THEIRS.
My credit dropped to 715. I am just at a loss as to how to handle this - they are not helpful at all and insist I am the wrong party for not sending my face in a video to the Philippines. According to the belligerent woman I spoke with, I am the ONLY person who has had a problem with sending the video.
Agree 100%,
Slots and their owners are regulated at least.
I never have, I always figure everything on a phone can be easily hacked. The only thing on my phone is my contact list, not even my e-mail.
As a side note I wasn’t able to successfully copy ALL photos and videos from the old phone to windows11 pc. I read several supposed remedies like the setting in the photo app Transfer to Mac/PC to have it set to keep original instead of automatic. There was 35GB of data on old iphone when i did a direct copy / paste of the DCIM folder on the new iPhone it only copied 11GB. Tried it several times and different ways of just copying the sun folders within the DCIM folder but even then only partial amounts of files would be transferred. Anyone know the solution to this and why in 2022 this is still a problem!?!?
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