Simbox Fraud Is Back

Lately, every single call I get from abroad shows on phone my as a local call. It went away for a while, but now the SIM box fraudsters are back in business, and with a vengeance.

A friend just called me from Italy and a local number showed up on my phone. I don't even want to mention which network's number it was, and which telco's numbers appear most often.

As if that was not enough, my friend complained that lately when they call Ghana, the call goes to either UK or India, and sometimes they hear the sounds of people having sex on the phone.

My friend is worried that this will create problems for people who make calls from abroad to their spouses in Ghana.

Yet another former colleague from USA posted on my Facebook wall that lately, anytime she calls Ghana, people ask her if she is in town, all because her call appears a local call on the phone of the receiver.

It is worrying that after the implementation of Kelni GVG's fraud management system by National Communications Authority (NCA), SIM Box rather seem to be resurfacing again in this manner and at this scale.

I remember in the midst of the argument in the past, over who is managing telecoms fraud, one of the allegations was that the very private companies contracted to do the job, were themselves involved in sim boxing because of the money in there. So it was easy for them to clamp down on some fraudsters because they had always known who and where the fraudsters were and they only expose them when it is convenient for them. Those were the allegations.

So my question is, could it be that the people behind KelniGVG know who and where the fraudsters are, but because they are getting paid now, they are quiet until when it is convenient?

I ask this question because I can't understand why at a time when KelniGVG and telcos claim they work with partners abroad to make 100s or 1000s of calls daily into the country, purposely to detect fraud SIMs, we are rather experiencing more SIM Box fraud at this level.

So was the investment into fraud management worth it; and the gains touted by government - are they really what the situation on the ground is?

I thought we were winning the fight against those fraudsters; apparently not.

SIM Re-registration

We were told that one of the main causes is bad SIM registration and activation practices of the telcos, so government announced that SIM re-registration was to begin January 2020 and by June 2020, all improperly registered SIMs will be deactivated.

The SIM re-registration was supposed to be based on the Ghana Card, but later changed to include other verifiable national IDs. But a key feature of the whole process is a common verification platform to be established and managed by telecoms regulator, National Communications Authority (NCA). As we speak today, February 19, 2020, the NCA has NOT yet established the common verification platform to even be tested by telcos before implementation.

Meanwhile, telcos are still registering and activating SIM cards as they have always done, using unverifiable IDs presented by customers. So we are back to square one, after spending several millions of dollars to do a failed SIM registration in 2011, which never cured SIM boxing.

So the question still remains whether the SIM re-registration has started or not, and if not what would happen to the SIM cards being registered now without the IDs being verified?

How come SIM box fraud is still on so strongly even after the regulator/government and the players claimed they have found a fix in the Common Monitoring Platform?

Arbitrage

I humbly submit that the argument that the minimum 19 cents per minute of calls coming into Ghana, compared to the cheaper local call rates, which creates an arbitrage, remains the sole motivator for SIM Box fraudsters.

We can do any and everything from setting up a fraud management system to doing SIM re-registration; if we don't remove the arbitrage, the motivation will still be there for fraudsters to invest into SIM boxes, because they are sure of huge profits.

Again, if we don't get the common ID verification system in place to ensure that the SIM re-registration is done properly, we will end at Cos90⁰.

Inadequate time

It is also worth pointing out that telcos have pointed out that the January to June deadline for SIM re-registration, less weekend days and holidays, come to a little over 150 working days, which is woefully inadequate to re-register the millions of SIMs on their respective networks.

So does it look like we will win this SIM box fraud war, or some people in high places are benefitting so they will keep pretending to fight it when in fact they are not.

Pretence

The telcos too are pretenders sometimes, because they have evidence to show that some of their workers are complicit in some of these fraudulent activities and yet we are yet to hear one telco, one telco name and shame a worker for fraud. They are quick to lay off agents who are not their staff, but when it comes to the insiders, they pretend they are non-existent, in spite of the overwhelming evidence.

I have personally reported a number suspected fraud issues to telcos, where the evidence points to an insider. What the telcos do is to keep you out of the loop without telling you what became of your report to them. You will contact them a million times after the report and they will keep ignoring you until you get fed up and stop. The police even made similar complaints against the telcos recently. Once the evidence points to an insider, the telcos start playing hide and seek with the police.

We can't win against the fraudsters if we don't get SIM re-registration right, don't remove the arbitrage between inbound international call and local call rates and if the telcos keep pretending all their staff are saints who just dropped from heaven.

And I am beginning to think the fraud management component of the Common Monitoring Platform established by KelniGVG for NCA is not a fix at all.