This year, consumers will lose $40 billion to fraudulent robocalls. The deluge of illegal robocalls also has conditioned 58 percent of consumers to answer calls only from numbers they recognize. This makes it difficult, expensive and sometimes impossible for hospitals, schools and other legitimate organizations to reach consumers.
At a SIPNOC 2022 panel, Rich Call Data (RCD) Best Practices: Building Trust for Future Success, John Haraburda, Principal Solutions Engineer at iconectiv, will explore how RCD is poised to help increase call-answer rates by providing an enhanced caller ID display that includes a company’s name, logo and call intent.
With more than 85 billion spam phone calls placed globally each year costing trillions in lost business and productivity, keeping the voice ecosystem safe for consumers and attractive to business is an objective we all share. In the U.S., service providers and industry players have been focused on implementing solutions designed to ensure the integrity of communications networks and mitigate any call-answering hesitation.
During the SIPNOC 2022 panel session, SHAKEN Goes Global: Opportunities and Challenges for Service Providers and Regulators Worldwide, George Cray, Senior Vice President at iconectiv, will outline a set of shared, technological best practices to extend this trust-restoring framework across country borders.
At MWC Barcelona 2022, iconectiv will share examples of successful industry initiatives and technologies that are restoring consumer trust in voice calls and text messaging, which is paramount to helping ensure the success of enterprise digital transformation. Rebuilding consumer trust in voice calls and text messages — after years of being undermined by illegal robocalls, SMS spam and fraud — is critical to the mobile ecosystem and all the retailers, schools, health care providers and other organizations that depend on it to inform and engage consumers.
57% of consumers say they now prefer online banking to traditional branch banking, and 55% prefer using mobile banking apps to stay on top of their finances, all according to the World Retail Banking Report. And, with contactless payments expected to continue rising worldwide to reach an over $1.6 trillion transaction value by 2024, according to data from BuyShares.co.uk, this burgeoning market is a major target for fraudsters looking to get a piece of the pie.
During the MWC panel session, “The Rise of Scam Attacks,” iconectiv will examine the various attack vectors the industry faces – from illegal robocalls to smishing exploits – and what’s being done to address them.
Spam and illegal robocalls have caused consumers to stop answering calls from telephone numbers they don’t recognize. This poses a significant challenge for legitimate businesses trying to reach consumers by telephone with important or timely updates and information. A Registered Caller proof-of-concept trial with Verizon and Metaswitch successfully showed that valid enterprise calls were fully authenticated, shared and broadcasted for optimal call delivery to improve the call answer rate.
It is time consuming for federal agencies to research and compare dozens of telecom service providers. That’s why the U.S. General Services Administration created the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program, which provides agencies with a single, convenient resource for quickly identifying their options. A new use case explores how iconectiv’s Common Language enables agencies to quickly, accurately and confidently compare their options before ordering services through the GSA.
Retailers and other businesses lose an average of $1.82 billion annually to callback fraud, according to the Communications Fraud Control Association. A newly released iconectiv use case describes how one major retailer that lost $400,000 in a single callback fraud incident, opted to address the issue by banning all callbacks to the country where the fraud originated before realizing that there were other, more customer-first options available. The use case explains how the retailer trialed iconectiv® TruNumber Protect, which features a comprehensive, continually updated database of high-risk and unallocated telephone number ranges worldwide, that enables retailers to assess situations as they come and protect themselves from fraud.
CBS Corpus Christi’s Victoria Balderrama reports on the dangers of NCAA March Madness. Balderrama turns to a fraud mitigation expert, Chris Drake, for tips on what to watch out for as the tournament progresses. The SVP of iconectiv warns views to never download a file from a text message sent by an unknown 10-digit number, as they can infect the device with malware. As a precaution, he suggests sports fans freeze their credit and back up their phone.
Fox Boston reports on the uptick in scams looking to cash in on the urgency surrounding March Madness betting. Chris Drake, SVP of iconectiv, shares his insight on the topic and warns viewers to be wary of 10-digit numbers, as they are easy to spoof. Other red flags to be on the lookout for include misspelled words, attachments/links or any request to be sent money via an untraceable method, such as cryptocurrency, gift cards or payment apps. Drake recommends that sports fans caught in a scam disengage and report the scam to the FTC or local police.
FOX Cleveland’s Brad Hamilton seeks input from iconectiv SVP, George Cray, on how scammers are leveraging March Madness to steal personal information. Cray warns that Ohio is a hotspot for scams, as the state can now legally bet on the tournament. He suggests putting a freeze on your credit and reporting scams to the local police.
Tom Zizka of FOX Houston warns viewers that March Madness is an opportunity for fraudsters to steal fans’ personal information. Scammers will use the NCAA tournament to craft texts around ticket sales or a betting opportunity in hopes to trick receivers into sharing personal information or clicking malicious links. George Cray, VP at iconectiv, offers insight as a telecom security expert and recommends never trusting these texts with sensitive information or clicking links. Zizka explains that another level of protection comes with messages from 5 or 6-digit numbers. Businesses have registered and undergone a vetting process to obtain these numbers, making them much more trustworthy.
An interesting and unexpected theme emerged during the Mobile World Congress 2023 show in Barcelona last week. Beyond the typical and expected exclamations of digital transformation, 5G, everything as a service, devices, robots and virtual worlds, a new realization took center stage. Weaved into the well-scripted threads of one keynote after another was the undeniable fact that the biggest change hitting telecom is a much needed and already emerging cultural shift in how the industry thinks, acts and innovates. The alarms were rung, signaling that the telecommunications industry must innovate—or someone else will.
Megan Moriarty of CBS Jacksonville shares the story of how Tesa Childs was a victim of number porting fraud. The victim shared that her bank account was emptied, and the scammer had complete access to her phone. Moiarty turns to telecom expert, George Cray, VP of iconectiv, for insight on how viewers can protect themselves. Cray explains that you can never 100% trust a text from an unknow 10-digit number and that 5-6-digit short codes are more reliable.
iconectiv will be joining service providers and regulators at the SOMOS Summit 2022 in Denver, CO on September 27-28, 2022. iconectiv experts will be onsite to discuss how industry players can best protect telephone numbers and provide further information on the intelligence phone numbers inherently have.
To connect with iconectiv during SOMOS Summit 2022, visit the link here.
Twilio’s Transform Together, a live event series hosted in cities worldwide, focuses on bringing customers, partners and business leaders together to contribute insights and learn new ideas about building the future of digital engagement.
Globally telecom users have been suffering RoboCalls, or nuisance calls. The USA and Canada have introduced call tracing capability that should help stop unwanted and fraudulent calls to reach the final consumers – what was then called STIR SHAKEN. Different levels of protection have been rolled out, but the problem seems to persist. MEF is holding a webinar to examine the lessons that have been learned from STIR SHAKEN and what the future holds for RoboCalls.
iconectiv will host the third quarter Common Interest Group on Routing and Rating (CIGRR) work group session in-person on July 12th – 14th, 2022. This three-day meeting provides an interactive forum for CIGRR to recommend advanced direction to the TruOps Telecom Routing Administration (TRA). TRA is the primary source of numbering, routing, and rating data in support of an intercompany information exchange process for the telecommunications industry. TRA provides data and services for the…
Messaging and SMS World 2022 will bring together the biggest players in the global messaging and SMS community to explore the latest developments in areas including RCS, OTT Messaging, Omnichannel, CPaaS, A2P/P2A messaging and fraud/security solutions.
The Common Language International Advisory Board (IAB) and Technical Advisory Group’s (TAG) will be held in San Antonio TX, on June 21st, 22nd and 23rd. The advisory board discusses topics impacting the telecommunications industry, while the TAG session addresses day–to-day operational concerns in regard to specific code sets identified to satisfy subscriber business requirements.
Studies show that in the U.S., 76 percent of calls from an unidentified or unfamiliar number are left unanswered. While the deployment of the STIR/SHAKEN framework is helping mitigate spoofing and robocalling, some legitimate business calls may consequently be mislabeled as spam, even if they are not. To combat this, businesses and their numbers must be vetted, registered and verified by service providers to help outbound calls be delivered to consumers and displayed appropriately.