Re: Sri Lanka to cut phone links to 13 countries to stop scams

[Richard Cox <richard () beijing spamhaus cn>]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:43:32 +0100
aborg () mca org mt wrote:

> I work for a regulatory authority and we've had numerous debates as to
> who should be liable for this problem. On the one hand, there's the
> consumer with a huge bill that he is unable/unwilling to pay (rightly
> so). On the other hand there is the telco with the "any calls you make
> you have to pay for" clause in their user agreement.  Both are
> unwilling to pay but IMHO, the telcos don't do enough to help prevent
> this problem.

It's worse than that - the reason this scam works at all is based on
deliberate misrouting by international Telcos, and all gateway networks
have to be "in" on the deal to one extent or another.  It is deliberate
fraud in that the Telco is charging for calls to country X while routing
them to country Y with the scammer (and the related consolidators etc)
collecting the difference between the rates.  Some national authorities
have taken action in these cases, and required refunds to be made on a
class basis: Canada comes most significantly to mind but I believe the
USA may have done the same.

Having worked as Regulatory office for a Telco, I'm well aware of the
SS7 mechanism that the scam uses, and the inter-Telco discussions!

-- 
Richard
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