Tough anti-fraud programmes including the monitoring of call patterns are essential for mobile phone operators to combat the growing occurrence of cellphone fraud.
That`s the opinion of Bruce Jones, sales manager for the Commercial Sector at SAS Institute SA, the leader in business intelligence (BI). However, this means that telcos need to understand customers` cellphone usage patterns in order to monitor and identify the occurrences of fraud.
Any sudden usage change usually indicates that:
a. The user is about to move to another service supplier, and is using up money with no intention of paying their last bill;
b. The mobile phone has been stolen and is being used by someone else; or
c. The business is suddenly booming, which represents an opportunity for cross-selling to the rest of the organisation.
"If a sudden usage change is noted, there needs to be some immediate form of intervention by the operator," says Jones. "That`s when BI systems become essential as they are the only systems that can trigger such alerts."
A major US operator, AT&T Wireless, recently lost thousands of US dollars because it did not recognise that a customer`s mobile phone was being used fraudulently.
Newsday, New York recently reported a case of a lost AT&T Wireless cellphone that was used to make more than $4 700 in calls. On investigation, it was found that this was largely made up of calls to a country that had never been called from that account before.
"It was obvious that the phone was being used fraudulently, and that the customer who had lost the phone could not be held accountable for the invoice," says Jones.
After months of negotiations, AT&T Wireless reviewed the case and billed the account only for the undisputed charges - about $200.
SAS data mining software adds intelligence to operational fraud systems, thereby enhancing the telecom`s ability to detect fraudulent transactions and identify patterns in such transactions so that fraud can be prevented in future.
Share