SIM swap crooks solicit T-Mobile US, Verizon staff via text to do their dirty work

T-Mobile US employees say they are being sent text messages that offer them cash to perform illegal SIM swaps for supposed criminals. Several Reddit posts reporting the unsolicited messages have popped up in recent days, including one megathread involving a screenshot of one of the offending messages telling an alleged T-Mob …

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the money

Then dont do what they ask, that’ll be expensive for them

[druck]

Re: Take the money

The have the cell Co's employees details, which no doubt includes their home address. You don't think they might come around and ask for their money back, nicely if course.

[hedgie]

Verizon at least has some controls in place that'd make such a scam more difficult, considering how many employees don't have access to that part of the account. A couple years back, when I added a new device (data only), some cock-up meant that the SIM/phone stopped functioning. Neither the in-store employees nor the tier 1 tech I talked to could even see what was going wrong, and both seemed competent enough with the technical issues. The tier 2 tech spotted the issue immediately and she informed me that the others wouldn't have even have read access for that. And yes, I'm sparse on the details because mobile phone systems are completely outside any area of competence I have.

[Anonymous Coward]

When getting a new SIM for new phone at an ATT store

... the service person made a dramatic gesture of NOT looking at my drivers license photo as he scanned it with his scanner. Holding his back and sideways, peeking just enough to get the scanner in the generally correct location. As though I might be a crook, and out of an abundance of caution, politeness and a sense of loyalty to the dark side, he did not want to interfere with my possible scam.

I will never ever put a bank app on my phone - and SIM swaps are not even the biggest risk.

[MachDiamond]

And people wonder

They wonder why I don't use text. Since I haven't been able to get my latest virtual phone carrier to block text messaging, I get all sorts of scams that lets me fill up my memory with blocked numbers. Political ads can be some of the worst but all they want is to buy my vote by promising some government largess which I won't qualify for being a homeowner, a citizen and employed.

If I were an employee and being texted to participate in these crimes, I'd be nervous about how much of my personal information has been put online. Somebody unknown has a phone number, the employer and likely a job title since it would make no sense to approach people that wouldn't have enough access.

I don't have anything on my phone that would impact me if the phone went missing. No payment, shopping, banking or insurance apps. No medical information and I only keep a subset of my phone list on the phone since there are a few people I know who would be instantly recognizable and I don't want to lose their friendship by disclosing their very private contact information.