Pretexting Privacy? Cell Phone Records Sold to Lying Brokers

The headline above leads to a Wired News story about pretexting by phone records brokers working a shadowy underground service selling phone records. A previous post here noted a story in the Chicago Sun-Times where cell phone records are for sale via multiple web sites.

How to get that information to sell it? Lie. Call up phone company employees pretending to be another phone company employee in a "Special Needs Office" pretending to be representing voice handicapped customers and simply ask for their cell phone records. Bingo, nobody wants to deny "Special Needs" customers their right to their records - so just give them up, without checking any further!

This is an internal cell phone provider problem that they have tried to pass off by suing those who have done the pretexting in civil courts, since it is not yet illegal to do this devious deed. This is how the now infamous LocateCell.com has been getting phone records and selling them for $110 per monthly phone bill - by lying to phone reps who don't know better because they have not been briefed by their employer about the scam.

Phone companies bear responsibility for lax internal privacy policies and failure to warn call center employees of this problem. Instead they simply go to court to stop the bad guys from calling? Just tell employees NOT to give those records to anyone but the customer! Bizarre.

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