The Rise of Fraud
Telecom fraud is on the rise globally, resulting in shrinking wholesale margins and impacting consumer confidence. Although there is a move from voice to data services, mobile operators will continue suffering the biggest revenue losses and reputational risks on voice services, especially international and roaming calls. Fraudsters are becoming more tech-savvy, able to reverse engineer the rules and methods used by mobile operators to detect and stop fraud.
This makes telecom fraud, or scam calls, one of the most important issues for operators and their subscribers alike. Of the common methods of call fraud, the majority fall under one of the two following categories:
IRFS and Wangiri
Wangiri and IRFS fraud involves the use of 0 (zero) second calls from superficially legitimate numbers. When a subscriber attempts to return this call out of curiosity or goodwill, the call is made to a premium/surcharge number.
Call Spoofing
Another technique fraudsters rely on is called spoofing. Using unknown/unallocated/DNO (Do Not Originate) number ranges, subscribers are tricked into believing a received call was from a legitimate source, such as a well-known company or government organization.
Typically, invalid A-Numbers (calling party) are charged at the most expensive surcharge rate, which can be over 100 times the standard termination rate.
A-Number Validation
In response to the pervasiveness of scam calls, operators have turned to Number Intelligence Datasets Services to help validate, in real-time, numbering ranges used by fraudsters.
As opposed to the FROM header that can be modified, an A-Number validation system validates the PAI (P-Asserted-Identity) headers of every call received for the following:
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Do Not Originate Numbers: The Do Not Originate (DNO) list is a database of phone numbers that should not be used to initiate calls or texts. Telecoms operators use the DNO list to block calls from these numbers, which can help prevent scam calls. The DNO list consists of inbound-only numbers (numbers used by organizations, such as Amazon) that are not intended for outbound calls.
- Unknown: An "unknown number" refers to a phone number that your system cannot identify, usually due to a network error or the caller intentionally blocking their caller ID.
- Unallocated: An "unallocated number" means a phone number that is not currently assigned to any user and is therefore not active for calls or messages; essentially, it's a number that doesn't belong to anyone currently.
- Incorrect Number Length: An incorrect number length falls below or above the expected min/max character length for an A-Number.
Scam calls are a top concern for both operators, whose businesses are impacted by the inflated termination rates, and consumers, who are increasingly targeted by fraudsters. A-Number validation is a powerful tool that operators can use to combat telecom fraud in real-time.
Telarix’s iXTools offers additional value-added services beyond real-time call verification. During the rating process, call records are enriched with numbering intelligence to supplement reporting, billing, and pricing operations. This includes “tagging” the calling parties for further processing, which can help with billing dispute resolutions, proactive call routing, and enhanced price list distribution.
To learn more about the measures operators can take to defend their subscribers and their business from telecom fraud, contact Telarix.
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