Customers of Verizon-owned TracFone saw their numbers transferred to different carriers without their consent in recent weeks, as part of what the company characterized as the work of external attackers, according to a notice on its website (via the Wall Street Journal). Its Straight Talk and Total Wireless brands were affected as well. Show “We were recently made aware of bad actors gaining access to a limited number of customer accounts and, in some cases, fraudulently transferring, or porting out, mobile telephone numbers to other carriers,” TracFone said in the notice. The company did not reply to numerous requests for comment from The Verge, but the WSJ reported that some 6,000 customers were affected. Some saw their lines had been transferred to Metro PCS, which is owned by T-Mobile. T-Mobile spokesperson Tara Darrow said in an email to The Verge that the company had investigated the issue, “and there is no fraud or data breach of any sort on the T-Mobile side of these port-outs. More importantly, we do not ever possess or house the account number or PIN data that TracFone requires to validate an account and is necessary to conduct a port out of a TracFone customer, so this cannot occur from our side of the porting exercise.” She added that the company was working with TracFone on the issue. Steven Simms of Atlanta has been a Total Wireless customer for about three years. He chose the plan to save a bit of money and says he and his wife were happy customers most of the time. But on December 31st, he says his phone number was ported to another carrier — Metro PCS — without his permission. “This inactivated my phone number so I cannot receive or make any calls,” Simms said in an email to The Verge earlier this month. He said as a small business owner, he was losing money because clients couldn’t reach him, and the company didn’t appear to have any remedy for him. Simms was among dozens of people who told The Verge they had their numbers unexpectedly ported to Metro PCS beginning in December. He said Total Wireless customer service was unhelpful and told him it had requested MetroPCS return his number, which MetroPCS told him wasn’t accurate. Simms said his number was finally returned after 12 days, and he’s planning to change providers but hadn’t done so as of Wednesday. Last September, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it was looking into strengthening rules to reduce cell phone scams, including port-out fraud. This is when a fraudster poses as the owner of a phone number, opens an account with a different cell phone carrier than the victim’s, and has the victim’s phone number transferred — or “ported out” — to the new account with the different carrier. It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday who may have been behind the attack on TracFone, but the company said in the website notice that it tried to notify customers, “but given the nature of this activity, messages to impacted mobile telephone numbers may no longer be accessible by some customers.” TracFone urged customers to change their PIN numbers and said it had made “enhancements” to improve security. Sean Hollister contributed reporting "Net10" redirects here. For the indoor American football tournament, see Arena Football League.
TracFone Wireless, Inc. (TFWI) is an American prepaid, no-contract mobile phone provider. TFWI is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications,[1] and offers products and services under several brands. It operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), holding agreements with the three largest United States wireless network operators to provide service: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US, and Verizon.[3] In 2021, Verizon acquired TracFone Wireless, Inc. from Mexico-based América Móvil (owner of Claro) in a deal worth up to $6.9 billion, involving 20 million subscribers. The deal was approved by the FCC on November 22, 2021 and closed the following day.[4][5][1] History[edit]TracFone Wireless, Inc. was established in 1996 as Topp Telecom Inc., a prepaid mobile phone company, in Miami, Florida. It was founded by David Topp and F.J. Pollak. Pollak acted as the CEO of Tracfone until his death in 2016. [6] In February 1999, Topp received a major infusion of capital from Teléfonos de México (NYSE: TMX), a.k.a. TelMex, Mexico's largest telephone company. TelMex paid $57.5 million for a 55 percent controlling interest in the company.[7] In 2000, TelMex spun off their mobile unit, creating América Móvil, of which Topp Telecom became a subsidiary. In November 2000, Topp Telecom Inc. changed its name to TracFone Wireless Inc.[8] In 2012, América Móvil acquired rival network Simple Mobile. In May 2013, América Móvil purchased Page Plus Cellular, which had 1.4 million subscribers. On January 6, 2014, regulatory approval was received and Page Plus Cellular began operating as a subsidiary of América Móvil. LTE service was inaugurated by TracFone's brands over a year and a half, with Sprint networks handsets first supporting it in May 2013, followed by AT&T four months later in September, then T-Mobile in March 2014. Verizon's TracFone headsets began to be supported in December 2014. Originally, TracFone service was limited to TracFone-branded phones, which are locked to the TracFone service using an internal SIM card. Other GSM phones, even those that were unlocked from another carrier, could not accept a TracFone SIM card, because these are bound to a specific handset. In 2013, TracFone began to open up its device pool with a 'bring your own device' program, selling SIM cards that could be inserted into qualifying non-TracFone phones (such as Verizon CDMA phones) to connect with the TracFone network.[9] In 2015, the program was expanded to unlocked and compatible GSM handsets. On September 14, 2020, Verizon Wireless announced its intent to acquire TracFone in a cash-and-stock deal worth up to $6.9 billion. The deal closed on November 23, 2021.[4][10][11][1] The acquisition will likely wind down the agreements to use the AT&T and T-Mobile GSM networks in favor of the Verizon LTE network (as the slower last-generation CDMA network for Verizon is being wound down itself), and as of September 2022, Straight Talk has transitioned to Verizon SIMs and Verizon-compatible phones, along with encouragements to replace TracFone GSM handsets. Legal issues[edit]Roaming and repair issues[edit]On February 9, 2007, a preliminary settlement in a class-action lawsuit against TracFone was carried out by Jeanette Wagner, and approved in the Boone County Circuit Court in Kentucky.[12][13] The complainants alleged that TracFone misled consumers by charging a roaming rate in their home calling area (they were charged for 2 units per minute, not the usual 1 unit per minute), and that it refused to extend their prepaid service time during handset repairs. As a result of the settlement, Tracfone gave each of their customers an extra 20 units of airtime. Misleading "unlimited" plan claims[edit]In January 2015, the Federal Trade Commission started a class action lawsuit naming TracFone and its affiliates, saying that the company cut off or slowed down "unlimited" data to its customers after they reached a fixed 30-day limit. TracFone was being sued over lying to their consumers about "unlimited" data.[14][15] This led to $40 million in consumer refunds as a result.[16]
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