SMS Lottery Fraudsters Still Flourishing Even After Biometric Verification of SIMs

We once told you that text messages for “Benazir Income Support Prizes” and similar lottery prizes will vanish away after biometric verification of SIMs, however, that hasn’t happened. Instead these fraudsters are now using SMS spoofing to pose as official senders of the lucrative prizes.

While there are little chances but for those who don’t know, these fraudsters send text messages to mobile phone users — usually in rural areas — with prizes of thousands of rupees, and in return they ask for few hundred rupees in advance as processing fee. Once this advance fee is paid, fraudsters get away and never pay the promised price.

While there is no research available for such people losing their hard earned money, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of rupees are wasted by commoners every day.

After biometric verification of almost every SIM, these fraudsters have resorted to SMS spoofing solutions readily available on the internet. With SMS Spoofing one can fake the sender ID and messages look as they are officially sent from recognized institutes.

While we know that there is a phone number given in the body of such messages that could lead to someone as all SIMs are bio-metrically verified now, law enforcement agencies, cellular operators, PTA or anyone else are least concerned about stopping these menace fraudsters.

While we know that telecom operators have installed systems to catch marketing messages, these SMS Spoofed messages are never caught.

Here are the possible reasons, or at least of these, that SMS lottery schemes aren’t put on an end:

• Not all unverified SIMs are blocked
• SPAM catchers of telecom operators are flawed
• LEAs aren’t interested in low-cost cases where fraud of only few hundred rupees is involved

If you (PTA, Telcos, LEAs ) aren’t part of the solution in stopping lottery fraudsters, then it will be assumed that you are part of problem

Unfortunately, even after the biometric verification of SIMs, these messages have not stopped and apparently no-one is putting any attention to the matter just because victims are from rural areas of the country and with less influence on the elite class that makes decision.

All in all, nothing is stopping these fraudsters in looting hundreds of thousands of rupees from innocent, unaware, illiterate and poor Pakistanis.

We have discussed before that biometric verification of over 100 million SIMs wasn’t going to help us stopping the terrorism, but these small crimes were definitely supposed to end. One may wonder the use of biometric verification campaign, worth over 60 million dollars and millions of hours of combined efforts of telcos and customers, if these small crimes are still prospering.

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Ban on Issuance of New SIMs by Franchises and Retailers Lifted

By Gulshan Naz: The ban on the sale of new SIMs by franchises and retailers has been lifted, we have checked with PTA.

The ban was imposed during the SIM reverification drive, which completed successfully this Sunday.

During the reverification drive, all five mobile phone companies were restrained from selling any new connection through franchises or retail outlets, a channel that heavily contributes to overall sales of new SIMs.

During re-verification drive, telcos could sell new SIMs only through company owned service centres.

With the lifting of ban, mobile phone companies are now allowed to sell new connections through all possible channels, however, biometric verification of customers is mandatory for issuance of any new SIM.

Telecom operators, along with various other businesses losses, witnessed a halt in new sales. This is also why customers weren't offered any promotions on new SIMs, which they can expect now during next few days.

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26 Million SIMs Blocked as SIM Re-verification Deadline ands

Mobile phone companies yesterday completed a three month long biometric re-verification campaign through which 103 million prepaid SIMs were supposed to be re-verified by their legitimate owners.

Each mobile phone user was asked to go to service centre, franchise or retail outlet of his/her respective mobile operator and re-verify his identity by matching his/her thumb impression with NADRA's database, thus ensuring that the owner of the registered SIM is indeed the legitimate CNIC holder against which the SIM is registered.

Total SIMs Selected for Re-verification

Following is the breakdown for SIMs that were to be re-verified:

• 1 and 2 SIMs per CNIC per mobile operator: 64 million SIMs
• 3 and more SIMs per CNIC per mobile operator: 30 million SIMs
• Total SIMs for reverification: 103 million

Re-verification Stats

• Verified SIMs: 71.1 Million (against 60 million CNICs)
• Disowned (Blocked) SIMs: 16.7 Million
• Unverified (to be blocked): 9.2 Million
• Total Blocked SIMs: Disowned + Unverified: 26 Million

While final stats for re-verification of SIMs are likely to be available late Monday, reports from late Saturday suggest that a total of 77.1 million SIMs were re-verified during last 90 days.

Some 16.7 million SIMs were blocked by operators as customers disowned these SIMs during the re-verification process.

With this, telcos processed a total of 93.8 million SIMs (out of 103 million target SIMs) and some 9.2 million SIMs remained un-verified that are either blocked already or are in process of getting blocked by the operators.

Mobile phone companies are asked by the regulator to submit a compliance report on Monday after blocked all unverified numbers.

This way, as a result of biometric re-verification, a total of 26 million SIMs (out of 103 million) are blocked.

SIM Verification Status: 

• Verified - 77.1 Million 
• Disowned (Blocked) - 16.7 Million
• Unverified (To be Blocked) - 9.2 Million

Operator Wise Re-verification Stats

According to reliable sources at PTA, who exclusively made re-verification stats available, subscriber wise ranking of mobile phone companies remained un-changed. However, unlike our earlier expectations, Telenor lost most number of SIMs during the re-verification process.

According to details (which are un-confirmed and unofficial), Telenor lost 8.53 million SIMs, while Mobilink sacrificed 7.55 million SIMs during the biometric re-verification process.

Zong lost 4.5 million SIMs while Ufone let go its 3.86 million SIMs.

Warid had to block 1.65 million SIMs from its database.

Number of SIMs Blocked per Operator: 

• Telenor - 8.53 Million 
• Mobilink - 7.55 Million 
• Zong - 4.5 Million
• Ufone - 3.86 Million
• Warid - 1.65 Million

Stats are un-official and include disowned plus un-verified SIMs that are blocked

If we subtract number of blocked SIMs from operator-wise SIM count from February 2015, we get following mobile phone phone users per operator:

Mobile Phone Users(After Re-Verification): 

• Telenor -28.3 Million 
• Mobilink - 30.1 Million 
• Zong - 23.52 Million
• Ufone - 17.87 Million
• Warid - 19.31 Million

Stats are un-official and are based on 90 days active subscribers who are verified by BVS

What Happens to Blocked Numbers?

If you own a SIM that was not verified through biometric verification system and is blocked now, then you have to go to service centre or franchise of respective operator to get your SIM replaced after biometric verification.

You will have to pay the usual SIM replacement fee (Rs. 50 to Rs. 75) to get your SIM replaced and activated again.

You can avail this facility of SIM replacement for next 180 days, after which your number will be blocked forever and will be added to re-sale pool.

Verification for Overseas Pakistan

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has given six months extension to those customers who are using Pakistani SIMs abroad.

Such SIMs, that are on international roaming, will remain active for another six months during which they are required to re-verify their SIMs as per SOPs for SIMs that are on roaming.

Cost of Re-verification Drive

Starting January 12th, 2015, the biometric re-verification drive continued for 90 days during which more than 80,000 biometric re-verification devices (each of which costs from 350$ to 400$) were installed by cellular companies.

Not to be mentioned, this was the largest deployment of biometric devices in the world for a single project.

Mobile phone companies claim to have spent more than 60 million dollars on entire drive that ended yesterday.

Telcos say that this cost of US 60 million excludes the business loss that telcos incurred during the SIM-reverification activity and that such business loss may span over years to come.

How Successful was Re-verification Drive?

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is calling the re-verification drive a success.

We agrees to the claim to an extent, considering that over 60 million individuals went out of their comfort zones to get into queues for reverification of their SIMs. 26 million SIMs are blocked, and this number is almost half of earlier estimates, so yes the campaign went successful.

However, impact of re-verification of SIMs on terrorism — the sole purpose of whole exercise — is doubted. As researches have already established, the registration process of cellular SIMs — no matter how rigorous and how intensive it may get — has no connection with terrorist activities.

Terrorists are going to communicate anonymously even after the re-verification of SIMs, either through internet or through other means available. And hence the core purpose of re-verification of SIMs is going to remain unachieved.

Having said this, there are countless benefits that Pakistanis will reap after re-verification drive. End of unknown calls, end of Benazir income support prizes or any other lottery scams for that matter, ultimate end to illegal voice exchanges as no one will dare to do even the minor of misdeeds with his/her registered SIM.

Most importantly, after re-verification exercise, we have an accurate figure of mobile phone users in the country.

With accuracy in data, we are now going to have better ARPUs of telcos, and lower teledensity levels that should translate into better positioning of Pakistani telecom market and hence greater chances of investments in years to come.

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85 Million SIMs Re-verified, Another 18 Million still unVerified

Telecom Operators companies have processed 85 million SIMs for re-verification through biometric verification system, suggests latest data made available to Pak Tech Insider.

According to data made available to Pak Tech Insider, mobile phone companies have successfully verified 74 million SIMs during two and half month re-verification drive that is going to end on April 13th, 2015.

Another 11 million SIMs were blocked as they were disowned by their owners.

UNVERIFIED SIMS WILL GET BLOCKED AFTER APRIL 12TH, 2015, AND THIS DEADLINE WON’T EXTEND

With this number, another 18 million SIMs are still pending verification, for which mobile phone companies have another 15 or so days to complete the re-verification process.

At the end of re-verification drive i.e. after April 13th, 2015, all un-verified SIMs will get blocked, and customers owning those SIMs will have to get their SIMs replaced by paying extra fee for SIM replacement to reinstate their numbers.

Market sources tell that number of re-verifications per day have now dropped to below 200,000 instances per day, as compared to an average of 1.5 million per day that telcos had maintained before February 26th, 2015.

Officials of mobile phone companies say that they are putting all possible efforts to ensure that maximum number of customers are re-verified before the deadline. Officials told that mobile phone companies are now focusing on rural areas, especially in Southern Punjab and Internal Sindh. High paying customers who have not re-verified SIMs are being approached in person now.

Also Read: 10.3 Million User Subscribes 3G Data in Pakistan at the end of February

Mobile phone companies are fearing that they may have to face extreme conditions after the deadline as millions of SIMs will get blocked and all such customers will at once head to franchises/service centres for restoration of their services.

These millions of customers with blocked SIMs would naturally want to get their connections restored with-in no time and that is when the support system of mobile phone companies is likely to get choked.

Market experts suggest that at least 10-12 million SIMs will never get re-verified as these connections are either dormant, or used by voice exchanges, spammers and those who send Benazir income support messages.

Data shared with Pak Tech Insider reveal that Mobilink is leading the charts with Telenor at second position.

Total Number of Verified SIMs – March 23, 2015

• Mobilink  – 21,719,733
• Telenor –  19,409,530
• Zong – 13,259,127
• Ufone – 11,798,657
• Warid – 7,822,218

Below are details about unique number of CNICs that telecom operators have verified. In other words these are unique number of customers for each operator.

Unique Customers Per Operator – March 23, 2015

• Mobilink  – 17,729,047
• Telenor –  14,039,149
• Zong – 10,119,588
• Ufone – 9,917,210
• Warid – 5,877,560

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