What Is Cell Phone Fraud?

There are people who are unclear about the question, "What is cell phone fraud?" According to the Federal Communications Commission, cell phone fraud is "the unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service."

One of the most common types of cell phone fraud occurs when a person pretends to be someone else and signs up for cell phone. In order for this to work the imposter would have specific information that would allow him or her to open a cell phone account. This is why it is very important to protect personal information and make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands.

Another type of fraud occurs when a mobile phone is "cloned" (identifiers of the original phone are assigned to a second phone) and and the cloned phone is used to make very expensive international calls or calls that incur roaming charges. Those charges are billed to the first phone. It has become easier for phone companies to detect cloning and therefor cloning is not as rampant as it once was.

In order to protect themselves against cellular phone fraud, consumers should be very protective of their personal information and information regarding their cell phones. Checking credit reports regularly also allows consumers to make sure there are not an accounts that have been opened in their name that they are not aware of. Unfortunately it can take years for some people to become aware of the fact that they have been victims of cellular phone fraud.