Cell Phone CEOs Marked For Phone Cloning

Saint Aardvark writes "When Sarah Drummond got back from Israel, she found a cell phone bill for more than $12,000. She contacted her cell phone provider to let them know that someone had stolen her phone, but they weren't interested in helping her and told her she'd have to pay. In preparing for small claims court, she and her partner found out that not only does her company have the ability to spot unusual activity on a cell phone account, the company executives' own phones have been targeted by a group linked to Hezbollah. From the article: 'They were using actually a pretty brilliant psychology. Nobody wants to cut off [CEO] Ted Rogers' phone or any people that are directly under Ted Rogers, so they took their scanners to our building, like our north building, where our senior top, top, top executives are. They took their scanners there and also to Yorkville, where there are a lot of high rollers and like it would be a major PR blunder to shoot first and ask questions later. . . . Nobody wants to shut off Ted. Even if he is calling Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait.'"

Comments

Rogers Wireless Customer

[Tiberius_Fel]

I'm a Rogers Wireless Customer (no, I won't tell you my phone number :P) and it's a scary thought to see that if somebody stole my phone and ran up a $12 000 bill, they would expect me to pay it. But what really makes me wonder is why they didn't stop to ask somebody! Sure, you don't want to cut off Ted Rogers' phone, but if you told him about it and said "this is unusual activity in your account - are you sure it's not fraud?" it would probably have been a good idea. Credit card companies (that I can recall) do just that.