Unauthorized SIM billing in the spotlight again

Questions are still being raised by industry players as to why the cellular operators are not pro-actively stopping the unauthorized billing of SIM cards.

One industry player has recently highlighted that a rogue WASP can start billing any SIM card without the authorization of the SIM owner or his cellular provider. All the WASP needs is your cellphone number.

Vodacom, Cell C and 8ta have all previously confirmed that consumers cannot pro-actively stop WASPs from billing them. It is understood that MTN also does not have such a mechanism in place.

Regulator e-mails from MTN to WASPs illustrated the problem clearly.

In the MTN e-mail to all WASPs the company said “Kindly block the attached list of numbers from participating on the services that you offer. These SIM cards are on telemetry devices and should not be allowed to access wasp services or billed.”

According to another industry source MTN regularly e-mail a list of mobile numbers to WASPs which may not be billed.  This raises the question of why MTN themselves do not stop the billing of these SIM cards.

If the cellular provider instead of a WASP block SIM card billing, they can automatically stop any WASP billing on telemetry numbers, recycled numbers or SIM cards from subscribers who request to opt-out of all third party billing.

“They had no problems to build a billing system to do the billing, providing an API to WASPs. However, it is too much work to build a system that would block a number from being billed by third parties,” asks our industry source.

The Wireless Application Service Provider’s Association previously said that they fully support initiatives like double opt-in to protect end users despite the fact that their members may lose lots of revenue.

MTN was contacted for comment, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.