Kaua’i residents from at least Hanapepe to Kapa’a have been victims of unauthorized roaming and long-distance charges attached to their Cingular Wireless cellular telephone bills. When Cingular is notified of the unauthorized charges, it deletes them from the customer’s bill,
Kaua’i residents from at least Hanapepe to Kapa’a have been victims of unauthorized roaming and long-distance charges attached to their Cingular Wireless cellular telephone bills.
When Cingular is notified of the unauthorized charges, it deletes them from the customer’s bill, the company said.
Several staff members at The Garden Island, as well as other residents, recently discovered unauthorized charges when their monthly Cingular bills arrived, some turning normal, double-digit bills into ones reflecting hundreds of dollars worth of charges they knew nothing about and did not incur through their own phone use.
One local company reported several of its business cellular phones reflecting roaming charges in Modesto, Calif., when the company does business strictly on Kaua’i.
Bills jumping from $35 normally to $586 also showed unauthorized roaming charges wrung up in California. A Hanapepe woman had a bill of $750.
The Kauaians are victims of what’s known in the telecommunications business as “roamer fraud,” where individuals and groups with sophisticated equipment somehow gain access to telephone numbers and security codes and transfer charges made by them to unsuspecting cellular customers, in this case Kaua’i residents and Cingular Wireless customers.
A common occurrence in California, where the street slang is called “cloning,” there used to be no recourse but to get a new phone number.
Roaming fraud has occurred since cellular communications first were offered to the public, according to Richard Gomes, a spokesman from a Cingular mainland office.
Initially, individual hackers devised ways to use the cellular systems to their advantage, but that illegal practice has become more sophisticated and more organized, he said.
These illegal activities that initially were an annoyance to the industry have become big business, he continued.
These criminal activities affect all carriers, he said, though a spokeswoman for island leader Verizon Wireless said none of its Kaua’i or Hawai’i customers have been impacted by similar unauthorized charges to her knowledge.
Cingular has a national roamer fraud team, and the recent rash of roamer fraud experienced by Kaua’i customers has been overcome, said Gomes, adding that some customers may still see unauthorized charges on their March bills.
This is due to what he called “standard delays in processing roaming records. Those charges would be from calls placed prior to fraud counter-measures taking effect,” he continued. “By the end of March, no more fraudulent charges should be appearing on our bills.”
The letter Cingular Wireless Kaua’i General Manager Hollis Crozier wrote to subscribers around the holidays said the anti-fraud measures could impact customers’ roaming service.
He suggested those planning on traveling to the mainland and wishing to use their Cingular phones there call the Cingular Kaua’i office before the planned departure, 639-5000, to notify the company of the travel plans.
That is the same number customers should call if they discover unauthorized charges on their bills.
Confirmed fraudulent usage reported to Cingular will be subtracted from customers’ subsequent bills.
“Roamer fraud is a national problem that unfortunately visited Kaua’i,” Gomes said, “but has been addressed and put behind us.”
Initially after alleged fraud was reported to the company a few months ago, Cingular’s national anti-fraud unit was activated. Letters were sent to Kaua’i customers asking them to review bills of the last several months for indications of unauthorized roaming or long-distance charges.
Such charges are reversed out as credits appearing on the next regular bill. That appears to be the only secure defense against the criminal activity.
Cingular does not have the technical ability to “pre-screen” each customer’s bill to determine the accuracy of a customer’s charges, said Gomes, responding to a question about what cellular users can do to protect themselves from unauthorized charges.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
