In an environment where the cost of essential services continues to rise, consumers and businesses are increasingly searching for ways to reduce their expenses. Whether it’s insurance, a mortgage, or travel arrangements, the promise of a significantly cheaper deal can be hard to resist. Unfortunately, this demand has created fertile ground for a growing type of fraud known as ghost broking.
Ghost brokers pose as legitimate intermediaries, offering to arrange products or services on behalf of customers at a reduced price. They often operate through social media platforms, messaging apps, or online marketplaces, presenting themselves as authorised brokers or agents. Victims typically believe they are purchasing a valid product through a trusted middleman, only to discover later that the deal was fraudulent, altered, or entirely fake.
Ghost broking is a multi-sector issue
Ghost broking is perhaps most widely recognised in the insurance sector, particularly in areas such as motor insurance where cover is legally required and premiums can be high. In these cases, victims may unknowingly receive falsified policy documents or policies created using inaccurate information.
However, the underlying fraud model is not limited to insurance. Fraudsters may also present themselves as brokers in mortgage applications or travel bookings, for example, exploiting the same pressures for lower costs and faster access to services.
In each case, the structure of the scam is broadly similar: a fraudster positions themselves as a trusted intermediary, collects payment and personal data, and provides documentation that appears legitimate but ultimately leaves the victim exposed.
Growing risks for consumers and businesses
The consequences of ghost broking can be significant. Victims may lose substantial sums of money, unknowingly operate without valid cover or services, and face legal, financial or reputational consequences as a result. Personal data shared with fraudsters may also be reused or traded, creating further long-term risks.
It also creates a significant burden for organisations, leading to time-consuming investigations and fraud losses. Yet the activity can be difficult to detect using traditional checks alone. Increasingly, organisations are finding that useful signals can emerge through contact centre interactions.
Using telephony signals to uncover ghost broking activity
Fraudsters, including ghost brokers, will usually interact with organisations by phone at some point, making the contact centre a valuable – and often overlooked – source of intelligence.
While individual calls may appear legitimate, analysing interactions across multiple calls can reveal suspicious patterns. The same phone numbers may appear in calls about different policies or customer accounts, and sometimes across multiple companies.
A recent case reported in the news illustrates how this can play out in practice. A father-and-son ghost broking operation was found selling fake motor insurance policies across several insurers, demonstrating how organised fraudsters often target multiple organisations simultaneously.
Smartnumbers customers have an advantage when investigating these types of cases. The platform can identify the true phone number used to call the contact centre, even when the caller attempts to hide it by withholding their number. Once identified, the number can be checked against internal denylists as well as telephony fraud intelligence shared by other organisations using the Smartnumbers platform.
Monitoring contact centre signals in this way gives investigators another tool to detect repeat offenders, connect activity across organisations and sectors, and intervene earlier in organised fraud schemes.
Find out more about our fraud prevention solutions for your sector here.
