As telco fraud rises sharply, protecting the contact centre is becoming essential to this sector’s defences. Taylor Barnsley shines a light on why and how based on a recent telco case study.
Telecommunications (telco) fraud saw a shocking rise in the UK in 2024, with Cifas reporting 108% increase in account takeover filings to the national fraud database (NFD) and a 91% increase in identity fraud in the first 6 months of the year. Telcos tackling this face an unprecedented challenge to secure their customers without compromising efficiency.
Telco fraud is lucrative – with customer accounts enabling access to payment details and bank accounts, as well as the means to make high cost calls and purchases. To prevent it, organisations typically secure their digital channels, but in our experience contact centres, with their human element, remain vulnerable. The problem is, fraud in contact centres is notoriously
Recent work with one of the UK’s largest telecommunications companies enabled them to explore the scale of fraud in their contact centre in more detail. The project involved this telco using the Smartnumbers platform to analyse and flag inbound call details for the following fraud risk factors:
- Calls from existing denylist numbers (ie already known to fraud teams)
- Calls from withheld numbers (callers attempting to avoid detection)
- Unusual call patterns (such as repeated calls in quick succession in the IVR)
- Calls from numbers in the Smartnumbers consortium database (ie flagged by other organisations using the platform, including large retail banks, insurance companies and other telcos)
Calls flagged with one or more of the above fraud indicators were then reviewed in depth. The findings were wide-ranging – so below are the highlights. You can download the full case study here.
Just a few of the initial findings over a one month period:
- 100 new fraudster profiles identified – profiles represent individuals or organised crime groups we also see targeting banking clients and include phone numbers and tactics used
- 58% of the calls found to be fraud were made from withheld numbers – confirms the high risk nature of these calls and the value of flagging them
- Fraudsters make an average of 8 calls (gathering more data and making account changes) before taking over a customer account. Eight opportunities to stop them before a transaction takes place.
Deeper analysis of the top five fraudster profiles led to the following further discoveries:
- The top 5 most active fraudsters made 219 fraud-related calls during the test period
- 78 customer accounts were the focus of a targeted attack during this time
- Analysis of calls received by the targeted accounts unearthed 4 additional fraudster profiles and 17 new numbers used by fraudsters
These fraudsters were attempting to do one or more of the following:
- Validate stolen customer details and gather more
- Access eBay, Amazon, or Paypal accounts or bank details
- Change email and address details
- Initiate SIM swaps
These types of telco fraud can be tricky to spot using standard contact centre checks, especially if the ‘customer’ appears to have all the correct information. So this case study really brings to life how Smartnumbers can support organisations with large contact centres to crack down on fraud.
It also truly brings to life the value of the Smartnumbers consortium. It proves that by enabling organisations from different sectors to share data and work together within the platform, more fraud can be prevented in the early stages.
For more information on how Smartnumbers Protect works for telcos, download the telco solution overview.
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