topic Re: Fraud or cloned SIM? in Get Support

Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 08:58:47 GMT

Just before my working day was over I started receiving emails from paypal indicating there were changes completed to my account and new charges/payments to my account. I tried to recover paypal account to found out my phone suddently stopped working - no calls or messages, emergency calls only.

After a few hours dealing with my credit card provider and Paypal, I realized I could see call and messages throught my PM account, these calls and messages I did not make. My phone was always (!) with me and it worked this morning.

So, I blocked services as "Lost/Stole Phone". When I pressed a button "Change SIM Card" I noticed it has last 4 numbers which are completely different from a SIM card number in my phone.

How did it happend and what shall I do?

Did anybody have the same experience?

I could not even imagine it is possible to steal your phone number and use it to make purchases with PalPal!

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Pizzaeh — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 23:46:15 GMT

@pavellyzhin , first thing, send a private message to the moderators by clicking this link

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

sunflowershine — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 23:51:55 GMT

@pavellyzhin wrote:
Just before my working day was over I started receiving emails from paypal indicating there were changes completed to my account and new charges/payments to my account. I tried to recover paypal account to found out my phone suddently stopped working - no calls or messages, emergency calls only.
After a few hours dealing with my credit card provider and Paypal, I realized I could see call and messages throught my PM account, these calls and messages I did not make. My phone was always (!) with me and it worked this morning.
So, I blocked services as "Lost/Stole Phone". When I pressed a button "Change SIM Card" I noticed it has last 4 numbers which are completely different from a SIM card number in my phone.
How did it happend and what shall I do?
Did anybody have the same experience?
I could not even imagine it is possible to steal your phone number and use it to make purchases with PalPal!

@pavellyzhin Wow. It is scary. You have to contact Moderator ASAP. Use the enevlop icon and send to "Moderator_Team" and see how they say about this situation. It may take up 2 days to get the response.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Pizzaeh — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 23:52:35 GMT

@pavellyzhin never experienced this. Once you find out additional details, I hope you can update this thread to let us know what happened. Maybe they hacked your PayPal account, and that was linked to your Public Mobile number?

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 23:58:17 GMT

So, Yes, I contacted moderator too. thank you for the advice.

The problem not with a paypal account (I got access to it finaly through email recovery) but with a PM phone number. I dont have an access to my phone! My sim card looks like its not active and somebody made call to Quebec and sent/received messaged from a phone which was always in my poccket all the time. This is really weird!

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Tony8 — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 23:58:58 GMT

Sorry to hear about your problem. Could you have Malware (a virus) on your phone?

Malware can be included with apps installed on your phone.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Pizzaeh — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:05:03 GMT

@pavellyzhin wrote:
So, Yes, I contacted moderator too. thank you for the advice.
The problem not with a paypal account (I got access to it finaly through email recovery) but with a PM phone number. I dont have an access to my phone! My sim card looks like its not active and somebody made call to Quebec and sent/received messaged from a phone which was always in my poccket all the time. This is really weird!

Wow, right out of spy novel!!! Only heard of spoofing a SIM; never experienced it. Definitely let us know, if possible, how this happened once the moderators/PM tech team can take a look.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:13:04 GMT

I dont use cellphone a lot. I am from the old school - phone to make calls. But yes, I decided to run an antivirus - nothing was found.

@Tony8 wrote:
Sorry to hear about your problem. Could you have Malware (a virus) on your phone?
Malware can be included with apps installed on your phone.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

srlawren — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:17:50 GMT

@pavellyzhin when you say the SIM card # in your self-serve account was different, it sounds like someone may have guessed your self-serve account password and swapped your SIM card out for their own. You may want to immediately change your self-serve password; use something strong and unique.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Pizzaeh — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:18:22 GMT

@pavellyzhin what I'm reading about SIM spoofing is they contact the carrier and convince them to move the number by activating a new SIM card. So your number would no longer work with the SIM in your phone. I think that's what happened here based on your description. However, in Public Mobile's case, we can change our SIM's through our self-serve account. Sooooo, the question is did it occur via the self-serve account, or did they contact the moderators and do it that way? I'm leaning towards the self-serve account being hacked, but then again, the weakness in most systems is the human. WOW!!! I gotta have a drink!

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:24:36 GMT

@srlawren wrote:
@pavellyzhin when you say the SIM card # in your self-serve account was different, it sounds like someone may have guessed your self-serve account password and swapped your SIM card out for their own. You may want to immediately change your self-serve password; use something strong and unique.

It would really difficult to try to guess my password. its not birthday dates or "qwerty" or 1111. I did not noticed any change to any personal information. And the password was old. If these gues are so smart they will definitely change a password 🙂 . In any case, I did it too.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:29:14 GMT

I just realized maybe somebody just ported my number to another provider? Is it possible to do it without me? Then I will have problems! try to recover your bank account without a phone number!

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

popping — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:36:34 GMT

@pavellyzhin wrote:
I just realized maybe somebody just ported my number to another provider? Is it possible to do it without me? Then I will have problems! try to recover your bank account without a phone number!

Yes. It is possible. But you account will be closed as soon as your PM number was ported out from PM. SInce you can still login to your account, you account still at PM.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Pizzaeh — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 00:36:46 GMT

@pavellyzhin wrote:
I just realized maybe somebody just ported my number to another provider? Is it possible to do it without me? Then I will have problems! try to recover your bank account without a phone number!

Maybe, but isn't your number still with Public Mobile? So they essentially move the number to a new SIM card, from the looks of it. We may not hear what actually transpired due to privacy issues and or security concerns. When a weakness is found, companies don't want to talk about it, for fear of it continuing to be exploited. They would rather fix it quitely. All, just my random thoughts on it.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

Omarh — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 01:04:44 GMT

@pavellyzhin I believe you have been hacked using a malware on either your cell phone or laptop. I highly recommend you change all other important passwords such as bank accounts, etc.. from a different known healthy device other than yours.

Make sure to check your devices for viruses and malwares

Best of Luck

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 03:51:48 GMT

Update:

Day one (March 27). I canceled my credit card and the bank reversed all charges. Left a message to Public mobile moderator. Tried to contact PayPal.

Day two. I was contacted by PM moderator for addition information. Was promised that fraud team would contact me in the next 48 hours.

Day three. Paypal still shows unauthorised transactions under pending status. Increadibly difficult to deal with them in this case if you have no phone to make a call. Nobody contacted me from Public mobile.

Day four. Nobody contacted me from Public mobile.

Day five (March 31). Still without phone. Nobody from Public mobile contacted me. Missed a few very important calls this weekend. Thinking about switching a provider.

This was the end of episode 2 of a season 1.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

kselmak — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 07:18:12 GMT

I'm hopping this works out

Thanks for keeping the community posted. im personally on the edge of my seat with this thread

I was wandering do you connect to open WiFi often or automatically? I know someone who will never connect their phone to somebody's network claiming all the communication can be intercepted. I always thought that was a bit too paranoid. He was network admin at some point and since I read this i think about him and I'm thinking he may be right.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 14:46:22 GMT

I answered in the similar thread. OP there had identical issue last week.

As for me, I dont connect to open wifi, there is no needs for me to use open wifi. My route from home to office is 5 minutes and I have data to cover weekends if I am not at home. So, the problem was not with open WiFi access.

@kselmak wrote:
I'm hopping this works out
Thanks for keeping the community posted. im personally on the edge of my seat with this thread
I was wandering do you connect to open WiFi often or automatically? I know someone who will never connect their phone to somebody's network claiming all the communication can be intercepted. I always thought that was a bit too paranoid. He was network admin at some point and since I read this i think about him and I'm thinking he may be right.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

LovesToPM — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 19:07:41 GMT

@pavellyzhin Sorry to hear about this incident. I hope Public Mobile can help resolve some parts of this mystery.

In any case, for full resolution, you may have to do some detective work yourself.

Reading these tips may provide more information or insight:
https://www.wikihow.com/Prevent-Hacking

Sometimes through no fault of our own, we just happen to be at the wrong place at the the wrong time.

Here are some important questions to ask:

When your SIM was already changed by the hacker, were you still able to logon your Public Mobile account using the same usual password?

How long have you had that password?
Do you use the same password or similar one on any other account(s)?

When and on which devices have you used to access your Public Mobile account?

I hope we can identify the issue to prevent it from happening again.

Re: Fraud or cloned SIM?

pavellyzhin — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 22:54:03 GMT

I had access to my account with an old password that is why I was able to put a Lost Phone status.

It will be extremely stupid for hackers to get acces to my account, change SIM card but leave the old password where I could block all the hard work they did before?

I do not have an access to a history of activity with my account. And because of it I cant say if the sim card was changed with the use of my account or it was done other ways, inside a PM.

@LovesToPM wrote:
@pavellyzhin Sorry to hear about this incident. I hope Public Mobile can help resolve some parts of this mystery.

In any case, for full resolution, you may have to do some detective work yourself.
Reading these tips may provide more information or insight:
https://www.wikihow.com/Prevent-Hacking

Sometimes through no fault of our own, we just happen to be at the wrong place at the the wrong time.

Here are some important questions to ask:
When your SIM was already changed by the hacker, were you still able to logon your Public Mobile account using the same usual password?
How long have you had that password?
Do you use the same password or similar one on any other account(s)?
When and on which devices have you used to access your Public Mobile account?

I hope we can identify the issue to prevent it from happening again.