International Law

Cell Phone List Brokers - Enablers of Fraud

Michael David Thomas spotted a neat little story about how list brokers get cell phone numbers, in his Pizza Phone Database

"This has been widely known and used in the investigative world for several years now, but this is the first time I've noticed a prominent story on the subject appearing in the media... Cell phones present a problem for investigators. Unlike landlines there have been no entrenched ways of getting good data on who a cell number belongs to, or vice versa - what a person's cell number might be. They're essentially all unlisted."

So how do you get someone's cell phone number?

"Now, it is actually illegal for telephone companies to compile mobile numbers in a directory without users' consent.

This would seem to imply that cell phone numbers are meant to be essentially private personal data. But the rules governing wireless companies don't cover third parties.

This loophole has allowed data aggregators to do off the wall things like buy your phone numbers in bulk (say, 90 million of them) from pizza delivery companies."

List brokers are critical enablers of fraud.

Telemarketing fraudsters use the immediacy of the telephone to engage, distract and ultimately defraud.

Especially at risk are those who have marked themselves as vulnerable by subscribing to the Do Not Call Registry.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).