Forum Discussion

enhuihao's avatar
enhuihao
Newbie Caller
Hace 3 años

Victimized by SIM card swap scam; would like to engage T-mobile regarding aftermath

Hello all.  I’m writing this here because there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to engage T-mobile over email (so as to send them all the evidence related to my horrible experience), and I’m hoping that a representative monitoring the forums will pick up on this and provide a way for me to discuss this with T-mobile over email.

 

Two day ago on the 25th of January, I was victimized by a SIM card swap scam perpetrated by some total strangers in New Jersey (I live in Washington state myself).  The fraudsters apparently called T-mobile, impersonated me, and got my number transferred to their SIM card, which they then used to gain access to my bank account and PayPal account, leading to two days of hassle and anguish, as well as the financial damage listed below:

  • $10,000 from my bank account that I cannot use pending investigation of fraud
  • $1,075 in charges made to my credit card from my PayPal account
  • Approximately another $100 in non-credit card-funded charges made using my PayPal account
  • $62 I had to spend with my bank to preemptively decline further charges from PayPal before I was able to report the fraud (as PayPal, amazingly enough, doesn’t have 24-hour customer service, so I wasn’t able to stop the fraud until they opened shop at 6AM the next day)
  • Plus whatever other information the fraudsters have been able to glean from the data associated with my number that they may yet put to nefarious use

I've had to spent the past day and a half closing and reopening accounts with my banks, changing phone numbers and passwords associated with my credit cards, and losing sleep in general because of this attack, and all because someone at T-mobile evidently didn't follow procedure (or worse).  As outlined in this enlace, it's apparently now T-mobile policy that "SIM card changes will now require either SMS verification from the customer or the credentials of two employees".  My niece, who is the owner and administrator of the account that my number (the one that was stolen) falls under, absolutely was no contacted by T-mobile prior to the SIM swap taking place; she only received a SMS notification after the SIM card change had already taken place (and we still have the message itself to prove it), at which point it was already too late to prevent the fraudsters from gaining access to my bank/online accounts.  T-mobile also did nothing in terms of verifying identity before they handed control of my phone number to these fraudsters, as the PIN my niece set up on the account was evidently never asked for (she has never shared that PIN with anybody, including me, so it's not possible for the fraudsters to know it).  As for the possibility that two employee credentials were used to effect the SIM card change -- well, that'd mean that this was an inside job, and would make it even more pivotal for T-mobile to contact me so that I can help them root out these bad actors from their ranks.

 

In any case, I would like for any T-mobile representative perusing these forums to contact me so that we can continue to discuss this matter over the phone and over email.  I strongly believe that T-mobile is culpable for the damage I suffered as a result of this fraud, because under no circumstances should any T-mobile representative simply hand over control of my phone number to some guy who found my name/address/number off internet white pages or whatever without even bothering to verify the matter with the customer who owns the number.

 

Enhui Hao

  • HannaK's avatar
    HannaK
    Network Novice

    I had the same situation. T-mobile swap my SIM card without my authorization. I lost $40,000 from my bank due to their negligence.

  • jinlin18's avatar
    jinlin18
    Network Novice

    I was also a victim of sim swap fraud. They took 12k from my voyager app, and the crazy part is it was a T-mobile supervisor who by-passed by pin code and authorized the sim swap change, during that time my account was compromised. Do you guys have any updates on your case?

  • Same thing just happened to me.  I received massive spam texts last night so I got tired of blocking/reporting them so I put my phone on silent and went to bed.  Woke up this morning to find out my email password has been reset/changed and then discovered a few minutes before the change that Tmobile sent me a equipment has been modified email which was suspiciously in my inbox trash can.  I never delete and send emails to my trash.  It was all Tmobile fault that they got into my email cause I have my number as an account recovery which I fixed and the timelines matches up.  I got the Tmo email about equipment change and then two minutes later, got email about password reset.  Fortunately I didn't have any money stolen from me and I hope you can get resolution to your problem.

  • I'm sorry to hear this I was also a victim of an unauthorized SIM Card swap and had $15,000 stolen.  Of course T-Mobile makes it hard and won't provide information because they don't want to take responsibility for what happened.  Did you find a way to get your money back? Im still going through the process of figuring this out myself so if anyone has any useful information please pass it on to us. 

  • syaoran's avatar
    syaoran
    Transmission Titan

    These forums are pretty much a peer help forum.  You either need to call Customer Care and speak to someone or reach out to T-Mobile via Facebook or Twitter.