MTN warns of SIM swap fraud
"They asked me questions one would normally expect when doing a SIM swap.”
MTN has warned of a SIM swap scam by bogus call centre agents aimed at obtaining customers’ security credentials.
“A supposed MTN agent calls to alert them a fraudulent SIM swap has been requested for their number. The agent then asks the customer for their correct security credentials – passwords – to enable them to block the requested swap,” said company spokesperson Jacqui O’Sullivan.
She said the customer’s credentials were used to actually perform the SIM swap.
“Customers must know that MTN will not contact them to block the processing of a SIM swap request,” she said.
The scam came to the fore recently when MTN customer Athalia Phetla posted on social media that her pension fund payout had been siphoned out of her account after “agents” called to ask for her personal information.
“They asked me questions which are normally asked when one does a SIM swap,” the woman warned adding she had been told someone had asked for a SIM swap of her number.
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“I didn’t suspect anything wrong as I thought they are from MTN.
I urge people not to fall victim to the crimes as I did.”
O’Sullivan said MTN was rolling out a biometric security system to further halt such criminal activity.
She said the company had introduced secure internal one-time-password access to enable it to trace who had performed the swap.
“Our monitoring systems give us a bird’s eye view of all related SIM swap activities.”
She said customers should note that MTN only processed SIM swap requests between 07:00 to 19:00.
“This is due to MTN’s focus on tightening up security measures to avoid SIM swap fraud,” she said.
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