What happened to telecom fraud? Is it still a problem? Do you as a business owner be concerned? Despite huge advances in security technology , as well as greater telecommunication security and awareness for customers telephone fraud remains to pose a significant problem for every business. The idea of thousands in the loss of a company because of fraud committed by phone call s is terrifying. Fraudulent phone calls can cause financial damage to your business. This is a scary thought. Even with the introduction of VOIP technology, criminals continue to find ways to break into complicated systems, and businesses like mine could still be affected.

There are three major types of phone frauds that all of us should be worried about and will be dealt with in this article. mobile phone by nuisance (cramming and slamming) and proprietary phone system (PBX and key system) fraud voice mail fraud, and the newest challenge that is VOIP phone system fraud.

online phone call : Business professionals are likely to come across nuisance fraud at one point or in another. Also called slamming, scrambling, and other types of fraud. While nuisance fraud is unlikely to ruin a company, it could drain revenue if it is not mentioned on the bill.

Cramming happens when a third-party provider charges fees and services which the client has not authorized. The charges cannot be requested or requested by your company. They could include items and services, such as fake voice mail service charges, operator assisted calls, call card services, monthly service fees as well as credit check services. Also, bogus white pages and yellow pages advertising may also appear on your business phone bills or be charged to you directly.

Cramming refers to the addition of costs to a subscriber's bill for services that weren't requested or ordered by the customer or for charges for calls or services that were not properly disclosed to the customer. whitepages reverse phone are often made by untruthful third-party suppliers of information or communication services that telephone companies must allow to be billed on the bill.

Have you ever looked over your phone bill and notice unusual charges from "other providers" that you didn't recognize? Chances are you have been taken advantage of. For businesses with large budgets they are often buried deep in the bills. They are hard to see and may go on for years, month after month and not be recognized.

How do you fight cramming and get refunds? First, contact your local phone company and request an annulment of your charges. Most cases will be retracted. To file a complaint against them, you can contact the FCC, the FTC or your state attorney general. However, first inform the crammer that you would like give them the chance to refund the money you paid.

Slamming occurs when a provider provides long distance, local or local toll service and an unintentional change or switch. Slamming can be frustrating as fraudulent phone companies could easily change or "pick" your long distance service for their plans, at a greater price than the one that you selected. Even after find more discover the fraud, there's an issue of switching all of your lines to the long distance service you should have and getting the fraudulent company to issue you a credit. How can you avoid this? Request your provider to put a "pic freeze” for your telephone lines. To gain access to all of your local, long-distance and cell phone accounts, you must request the carrier to provide a corporate password. Limit access to these accounts to two people.

Frauds in the phone system as well as voice mail types of frauds continue to be a problem for many companies. They'll continue to be a problem as long as there are PBX and Key-type telephone systems. Long distance calls can be expensive and hackers have easy access. Proactive prevention of this type of fraud is a lot easier than fixing it after it has been discovered. Let's face it, like most criminals hackers are lazy, and they'll leave your company in peace and head to a different location provided that your system is protected by the security features that are required. First, ensure that the master default passwords that are provided by your phone's manufacturer are updated at the address you provide. Hackers have these passwords and are able to attack your system if have access. Many of these master passwords for phones (i.e. : Avaya, Siemens, Nortel, Mitel, Cisco) are online, and accessible to anyone. The change of passwords is done by making an inquiry with the company that maintains services your phone systems.

Make sure your remote access to you phones is secured. Access to your phone system remotely could be secured using security encryption technology. Then, ensure that your employees do not use easy passwords like "1111" to access their voice mail boxes. They are easily hackable. It is also possible to set your voicemail system so that it reminds employees to change their passwords at least once every 90 days. If employees quit the company, ensure that you remove the voicemails they have not used in the shortest time possible. Why? The hacker gains control of the voicemail system and then records "yes" The hacker calls an outside operator and connects a third-party. The operator asks you if you are willing to pay third party charges for Mr. Jones' calls. The voice mailbox responds, "yes", as programmed.

Another major threat to companies present day is the issue of weak connections in the employees, specifically the receptionist at the company. It is commonly referred to as "social engineer fraud". Receptionists and employees must be alert for a call that's received, where someone could identify themselves as an employee of the company that is testing lines. They might say, "I'm with the phone company and I'm conducting an experiment on your phone systems. please transfer me to a specific extension." Transferring a caller's number to specific numbers first connects to an outside phone line "dialing 9" and "dialing the number 0" accesses the outside operator who can facilitate calls to any location in the world for the crooks. The calls are then back charged to your company. Hackers may also employ other tricks, such as identifying the board members of large companies and then impersonating them when they make calls made to your company. Since board members don't communicate with receptionists as frequently as employees, it's possible for the receptionist to not be able to recognize their voice. The power of a board member is receptionists are able to transfer unlimitable amounts to callers. Most often, the crime is not identified until the bill is due. This scheme should be made known to receptionists and employees. This crime was used by a variety of companies to earn thousands of dollars in international calls.


Keep an eye out for a toll-free phone number that your business can make calls to inbound numbers. Hackers can call in on the number toll free and make use of codes and features to place calls overseas or ring up service charges on paid calling services.

Another thing to consider is to limit certain calls forwarding and conferencing functions in your phone system for business that could assist hackers in forwarding calls for you. To ensure that your phone system's security, talk to your provider of phone systems to perform a vulnerability assessment. A lot of the top telephone equipment makers, such as Siemens, Nortel, Nortel, and Mitel have security bulletins that can aid in keeping your phone system safe.

VoIP Fraud Third and final issue with the fraud of voice calls in telecoms. The fraud involving Voice over IP is in its early stages but becoming more prevalent. In the section on phone system fraud changing the passwords of your system in your VOIP telephone system is among the most effective ways to avoid this type of fraud.

Recent attacks against VOIP systems are beginning to draw greater attention, but the actual instances of fraud are only beginning to become an issue. Two individuals were detained in 2007 for routing calls through an ports that were not protected by different companies to connect them with providers. Over the course of three weeks the two routed half one million calls to a VOIP provider. video phone call believe the two were able to make as much as $1m through the scam. While actual cases of fraud involving VOIPs are uncommon, it is possible to cause serious harm through exploiting security holes and vulnerabilities that are becoming more common.

VoIP hackers are able to exploit system passwords to gain access to corporate VOIP voice systems and have the potential to take millions of minutes of long distance service. How? What is the procedure? They create and implement customized software code to decipher access codes and access exposed data ports , computers and data gateways. Hackers can find it easy to make use of default or poorly chosen passwords.

To stop these attacks against your business and stay up-to-date on the latest security techniques and VOIP fraud prevention advice for your VOIP equipment providers and ask them questions specific to how to best protect your systems. It may be worthwhile having a professional conduct an audit on your security of your VOIP system, particularly if you own an extensive one. area code and IT managers must use the latest encryption techniques for access to their network and train and monitor their employees on effective safeguarding of their company data and IP system data.

The best method to know if a telecom fraud is being perpetrated on an enterprise is to perform an extensive audit of telecommunications and a complete phone system review.