TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu> (01/10/90)
[Excerpts from the Chicago Tribune and New York Times, Sunday, January 7, 1990] By Calvin Simms With college students returning to campus after the holiday break, long distance telephone companies are continuing their nationwide crackdown on students who steal telephone services by using illegal credit card numbers and access codes. To combat telephone fraud, the companies are closely monitoring all long distance calls placed from college campuses so they can quickly detect patterns of abuse. The long distance carriers have also started an information campaign to let students know they will be prosecuted for stealing telephone service. In some cases, the companies have agreed not to prosecute students if they come forward and pay for the illegal calls. Two years ago more than 1000 students at North Texas State University in Denton confessed to using stolen telephone credit card numbers to make long distance calls and agreed to pay MCI Communications Corp. about $100,000 in restitution. The same year, about 400 students from American University in Washington, DC faced prosecution for using unauthorized codes, but under an amnesty program offered by MCI, they paid $32,000 in restitution. Although telephone fraud on college campuses has shown a slight decline in the last two years, law-enforcement and telephone company officials say many students continue to steal long distance service by charging calls to someone else's account, especially at the beginning and ending of semesters. College students are the second-largest group responsible for phone fraud according to Rami Abuhamdeh, executive director of Communications Fraud Control Association, an industry group financed by telephone companies. The group most responsible for phone fraud is prisoners. Telephones for inmate use in penitentiaries have a very high rate of fraud, and usually are monitored very closely, and have numerous restrictions on the types of calls which can be placed from them. Telephone fraud costs long distance companies more than $500 million per year, or about one percent of the industry's total revenue, the fraud control group said. Of that, colleges, military bases and penitentiaries account for thirty percent, or $150 million, and of those three groups, prisons are first, college campuses second, and military bases third. "A lot of students think it is impossible to trace back fraud calls to them, but the fact of the matter is we can, and we will," said Robert F. Fox, Vice-President, Corporate Security, of US Sprint. He pointed out that in many instances, Sprint has an agreement with schools to match the destination of illegal calls with the home addresses of students enrolled at that school. A spokesman for MCI agreed, saying that most colleges and universities will supply telephone companies with the home addresses and telephone numbers of their students. Providing phone service to students on college campuses is a very tricky problem, and to guard against lost revenues, phone companies often treat college students and prisoners the same: as high-risk customers of whom a large security deposit will be required. Or, they may require some third person to make a personal guarentee for the payment when it comes due. Ronald Potter, Manager of corporate security for AT&T, said that the company has begun a nationwide deterrent campaign that includes posters and leaflets warning students that they are breaking the law if they use stolen codes. And he noted, "We remind them that upon conviction for this in a federal court, the law provides for imposition of punishment including fifteen years in prison and a $50,000 fine." The fraud control group stated that techniques for discovery and prevention of fraud are 'becoming much more sophisticated than ever before.....we are catching people all the time, and college students in particular are watched closely'. Patrick Townson
cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (01/11/90)
The published item says "beginning and end of semesters". Let me add this: A caution I read several years ago was that at the beginning of a traditional spring term, students usually have less money available than at the beginning of the fall term; therefore, various forms of fraud (shoplifting, phone fraud, etc.?) are more likely to occur at the beginning of the SPRING term.