Slam! Bam! Thank you, ma’am.
Opening mail that accumulated during a week’s vacation was a test case in re-entry shock and a reality check. Fraudsters had forged my signature on an application for AT&T Corp. long-distance wireline telephony. Someone, possibly the same person, somehow also had procured my birth date and social security number in order to open and use a personal communications services account with Omnipoint Communications Services Inc.
After reporting these identity thefts to the carriers, NYPD, the Postal Service, credit-card reporting agencies and the Secret Service, I told my troubles to Klaus, the proprietor of a nearby convenience store. Klaus said he now is forced to close up shop when he runs out of dairy products in between regularly scheduled deliveries so he can pick up the items himself. The reason? The delivery driver is getting socked with $80 per-call charges when he responds to pages whose local call-back numbers begin with certain exchanges.
Listen up, telecom executives! We, the consumers, may be caused a great deal of inconvenience. But, as the Secret Service agents I spoke with said, it is the carriers that foot the bill for fraud.
Therein, law enforcement officials are hoping, exists the greatest incentive to nip this spreading epidemic of electronic theft.
Both AT&T and Omnipoint in making routine, simple checks, could have stopped this fraud. In AT&T’s case, my poseur listed the wrong zip code, the wrong town and included an apartment number for my address, which is a single-family house. In Omnipoint’s case, the phony subscriber included her correct home phone number, which obviously isn’t the same as mine. (She hung up fast when I called, identified myself and informed her I plan to press charges against her to the full extent of the law.)
Both AT&T and Omnipoint pride themselves on their directory assistance services. Why is it that their customer service representatives didn’t at least check the phone book to seek if the information matched?
I am not a stock picker by trade, but I’d bet that companies involved in voice, iris and fingerprint recognition will do well soon. Such technologies are all we individuals have left to prove we are who we are.
Meanwhile, telecom companies, you’re picking up the tab. Not only for fraud, but also for revenues lost due to the reluctance of consumers to use your services and for the overall dampening of economic growth due to time and money poured down this sinkhole of deception.
