How Does Roaming Fraud Affect Mobile Subscribers?

September 2023

Telecoms & Connectivity

Rosie O'Connor

Research Analyst

Roaming fraud occurs when a subscriber moves from their home public network to a visited network, and uses services with no intention of paying for them. Additionally, roaming fraud can be carried out by fraudsters who trick operators into thinking the individual is roaming when they have not moved from their original location.

As a user gains access to a service through fraudulent activity, the local public network is unable to charge the user; resulting in operator monetary losses. This can be detrimental to operator revenue, as the fraudulent activity can be difficult to trace and resolve; wasting time and resources attempting to track the attacker.

However, as we discuss in our latest roaming fraud research, roaming fraud can have several impacts on everyday subscribers, including:

Financial Losses

Whilst operators lose roaming revenue from fraudulent callers, subscribers can also experience significant financial loss.

Fraudsters may utilise the subscribers’ roaming services in an unauthorised manner whereby, illegitimate calls are made to expensive locations as well as using data services without consent. The consequence of this is that subscribers will end up with major charges from activity that is unbeknownst to them. Without evidence of this fraudulent attack, subscribers may be expected to foot the bill, thus suffering financial losses.

Wasted Time and Resources

For both the subscriber and operator, resolving roaming fraud attacks can be time consuming and costly.

In some cases, the issue may not be resolved not only costing the subscriber time but also financial and reputational damage, if the subscriber cannot prove the activity on their accounts is fraudulent.

Identity Theft

A fraudster can steal a SIM or gains access to a subscriber’s personal information in order to act as the subscriber whilst accessing their personal information.

This can damage the subscriber’s reputation in terms of credit history, in turn, damaging the relationships between subscriber and service provider. Additionally, this may lead to further financial losses if the fraudster makes unwarranted purchases from the subscriber’s account.

Blocking of Legitimate Callers

In an attempt to block and minimise the number of unwanted fraudulent callers, legitimate numbers may become blocked in the process. This creates issues for the subscriber, business and service providers if legitimate calls from trusted sources remain unanswered or blocked.

In some extreme cases, this can lead to users not receiving important calls from sources such as follow up appointments or waiting for medical results; becoming potentially life threatening.In order to minimise the chance of fraudulent attacks on the subscriber, users must also take responsibility for checking their roaming agreements as well as monitoring any suspicious activity across their accounts. In case of illegitimate use of the subscriber’s information, the quicker it is reported by the subscriber, the sooner the issue can be resolved and the subscriber will less likely have to succumb to the charges from the fraudulent activity.