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Port out scam

  • 21 August 2019
  • 29 replies
  • 1951 views
M

On 8/19/19 a hacker gained access to my cricket account somehow.  They changed my password then ported my phone number away from my sim card. I do not know how this happened, but i have read that this occurred with other cricket customers. At this point they accessed all my bank accounts and paypal account using text verification and "forgot passwords."  They began to transfer money out using the zelle p2p functionality.  They also tried to gain access to my email account, but failed.  I have had to freeze all online accounts and reset my account numbers.  

They only way I was able to recover my phone number was to purchase a new sim card and then have it ported back in.  When I explained the situation to cricket customer service no one could explain how this could happen to me or understood what i was referring too.  

 

Again, I have read multiple reports of this happening to other cricket customers.

 

Order of events. Received text notify change to cricket account.  at this point i was locked out of my account. second text arrived at which point I loss cell signal when number was ported over.  Hacker then accessed paypal account and removed $500.  Hack then tried to enter gmail account. Hacker then entered two bank accounts and removed money via Zelle. This all happened very quickly in less than an hour. 

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Best answer by BillyM_Cricket 21 August 2019, 21:25

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29 replies

BillyM_Cricket
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

Hello @Morty,


We would like to apologize for your experience. We are aware of an issue that some customers are having and at this time we do not believe it is due to a breach of Cricket's systems. However, we are performing a full investigation to determine the cause. Please ensure that you reset your pin, security answer, and online password. If you need assistance please reach out to us on twitter (@cricketsupport) or Facebook (m.me/cricketwireless).


 

R
All I know is I’m trying to port out my numbers to a new company. I own my phones and they won’t let me leave.
R
All I know is they won’t let me put out my numbers. I own my phones and they won’t let me leave to another company.
martinpayne_
Badge +3

@Ramapo Hey man! I'm sure Cricket isn't holding customer numbers and preventing them from porting out. When you port your number out, you just need to make sure that your info is correct for the port to complete. Give the guys a shout on Facebook or Twitter, they always respond pretty fast. 

I
Userlevel 1

Sure it's not a breach of "cricket's systems".  In the last 4 days, my same phone line has been ported to a different SIM card 4 times.  Just like the OP, I have had to purchase new SIM cards every time to regain my number.  Every time this has occurred, I've called Customer Care to 'suspend' the line AND reset my PIN code and security question.

Last night, my phone line suddenly disconnected.  I've been on the phone trying to regain access to my phone.  This morning I went and purchased a new SIM from a Cricket location (my 3rd one) and reset my PIN.  No one should have known my PIN, at this point I'm coming up with random numbers that would be hard to guess.  Well guess what, only a few hours later my phone was SIM swapped AGAIN.

I called Customer Support and suspended the line again.  The CSR on the phone was "shocked" as he didn't understand how this was happening.  He gave me two locations where my phone was ported.  One in Miramar and one in Miami Gardens.  I'm almost positive Cricket has employees who SIM swap for criminals.  This HAS to be an inside job as I'm changing my PIN daily and it's still getting bypassed.

PLEASE INVESTIGATE.  You are going to get hit with many lawsuits and lose many customers.  After getting my phone line stolen on 3 different occasions in the last 5 days, it can only be because of your employees.  Your employees are either being tricked by the criminals posing as your customers, or they are accepting bribes.  There are plenty of articles online where wireless store employees got arrested for SIM swapping.  Cricket, I think you're next to make headlines if you don't do something.

Bulldog
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

@igorek84 Have you reset your online login password? If whoever is doing this has that information they can just go online and change the sim whenever they want. 

I
Userlevel 1

@BulldogYes.  I have changed my online password, PIN number, and security question several times.  Yet, this continues to happen.  I've spoken to 5 different CSRs (I have names, but won't list them here as they truly tried to help), and all of them were baffled by the situation.

BillyM_Cricket
Userlevel 4
Badge +5

@igorek84 We would like to look into this further. Please reach out to our social media support team via twitter (@cricketsupport) or Facebook (m.me/cricketwireless) with the details and your info.

D

I am having this same exact problem and Cricket's customer support has been jerking me around for the past week. They didn't even give me the option to buy a new SIM card in order to get my phone numbers ported back--which I stated I was willing to do and they just ignored me.

I'm really pissed off. They're too busy denying culpability to actually bother trying to get our phone service back. I have repeated myself over a dozen times stating that I don't care who's at fault, we just want our phone service and numbers back. 

Can you help? Or is this another lost cause? I have tried the online chat support and over the phone support numerous times.

Two of our phone numbers that were ported out were for minors. This is becoming a safety concern for my children and major inconvenience for me. The kids used to be able to walk to school, because I knew they had their phones for emergencies. Now I have to leave work to drive them. I'm also concerned about their friends texting them and some nefarious person answering.

 
Cricket should get behind this and help any members experiencing this problem rather than persistently blaming the customers for the unauthorized account access. Cricket's main priority should be getting the customer's phone lines ported back as soon as possible to prevent further trauma (like the bank account access that I read about in the last person's post). This is ridiculous.
I
Userlevel 1

Yes, in my case (which I didn't even mention), the hackers broke into my bank account because they were able to bypass 2-step authentication since they received the verification text and not me.  They setup unauthorized Zelle transfers out of my account, one of which was successfully completed.

I have contacted Cricket Wireless via Facebook as suggested.  From what I can see, they haven't even read the message.  I hate blaming Cricket store employees for this, but I don't see any other reason how my PIN is bypassed (or is known) right after I change it.  At this point, I'm hoping police gets to them first before Cricket is able to fire them.

We need a big story to make changes to our security unfortunately, otherwise nothing will get done.  Wireless companies should be held to higher standards than banks, because with a simple SIM swap my whole financial life is upside down.

C
This happened to me as well. I went inside a store then when I came out 15 minutes later I had no service.
I found out what was going on the minute I came home to wifi.
J
I'm sitting in cricket as I type this dealing with the exact same issue. I'm beyond frustrated. Their lack of care is infuriating. It is obviously an on going issue that needs to be fixed. I am to the point of contacting an attorney. As I have spent over half my day changing passwords, making phone calls, filing fraud reports. Etc. At this point 7 thousand dollars is up in the air.
C

This happened to me as well, same deal, money stolen from bank account via zelle shortly after unauthorized porting scam ... 

 

So far, 15 days waiting on cricket to "investigate" the issue with not even 1 phone call to notify me of what's going on.

 

I've called *dalily* for 15 days straight.... no answers, no help, NOTHING yet.

I'm .001 seconds away from switching carriers because of their lack of customer care.

C

The exact same thing happened to me 15 days ago.

Cricket has been "investigating" it for 15 days, not even 1 phone call to let me know what's going on.


I've called them daily for 15 days... still no update on the issue or what they will do to help me...

From what the representatives have told me, the case was passed along to an internal department which "performs the investigation" and once that happens they are unable to provide any status update as to what's being done.

As a result, they opened a new case, to check on the first case!  (like magic, again, no updates, no call-backs, no information)...


Thank you very much Cricket.  

 

M

I just had the same situation happen and I called into the Cricket store and no solution was remedied nor could they provide answers on how this occurred. The thief, thankfully was unsuccessful in the hour timeframe allotted other than to gain access to one of my accounts, which I caught before it could be completed. Changed all account numbers, locked my credit and put fraud alerts on everything. This is absolute insanity. I am switching providers because it had to be an internal thing with Cricket.. Too convenient not to be.

D
I changed to Cricket in the summer of 2019 just a couple of weeks ago January 2020 my account was hacked and my American Express Account I can tell you this I never had any problems with any other phone provider. I live in Holiday Florida and the person that hacked me his name was Benjamin and the person who took care of me at Cricket Wireless his name was Benjamin so it's time to investigate get rid of these hackers.
P
This just happened to me this week. I can’t believe people have complained about this same exact issue for more than a year and has not been stopped and customer service and store managers do not know how to handle this situation...it baffles me. They ported my phone number, got into my email changed my password got into my bank and made zelle payments. Opened a credit card with PayPal. Cricket created a case but said it will take 4 days before someone gets back to me. 4 days a case of fraud? Can someone escalate this issue.
A
This exact same thing happened to me today, almost exactly word for word how you described it and of course Cricket pretends they have no idea how it happened. It has to be an inside job. Cricket also said they couldn't get my number back for at least 2 months
A
This just happened to me today, almost word-for-word how you just described it. Cricket pretends they don't know anything and they are completely unhelpful. It has to be an inside job buy a cricket employee. I have found a bunch of post just like this. Cricket says it will take months for me to get my phone number back. I held for two hours each time I called customer service and I was hung up on both times, so I don't know if they're even doing anything and when I went into a store they were even more useless. I'm at a loss for what to do.
K
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

Took about a month to get my Number back, PayPal was fast in giving back what they got from Samsung pay, I've never had Samsung pay, They never got my bank, I use a different password for that, and two Point identification, But I did lose access to my own bank for a few days, as I could not get the codes that were being sent to me.  Never found out what happened too many ways this could happen, Spoof e-mail, Wi-Fi hack, Key logger, Inside job, Dark web, seems like if they really wanted to find out, they could… With mine they used it at Walmart’s, in Florida, Don't they have camera’s, I knew which stores right away, Got sent live action receipts with store number, and register number, Since they didn't get my e-mail account, I was getting receipts.

PoboyProphet
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Thats sucks. its great you were able to get your money back. Unfortunately every phone service has customers that are victims to sim swapping scams. Everyone thinks its Cricket, but too your point it can come from too many other sources. Hell even Jeff Bezos was a victim to a sim swap. All we can do is try to protect our account and passwords the best that we can. 

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/798630195/dont-be-like-jeff-bezos-here-s-how-to-keep-your-phone-safe-from-hackers

 

F

I vote that it is an inside job.  Last week my wife's phone had the number ported out and mine had the sim card stolen.  In less than a week the sim card is stolen again.  Moved the account to my name not Her's and new password and pin and in a few days I need a new sim card!  

P

This exact scenerio has happened to me alittle over one month ago, except they failed in gaining access to my bank accounts thank goodness. Cricket has been going back and forth with lieing in the progress they have made with my case. They have not been forth right, although kind, each day i call to check status of the status and have since been told whom my number was ported out to (Tracphone), at which both parties state their waiting on an "Email" from the other party to authorize MY number to be ported back. Several accounts including my wifes were compromised including our social security numbers being stolen. Im completely at a loss for words. 

B

The exact same thing happened to me a week ago. After a week, they are still 'investigating'...  and today, my phone was blown away back to factory settings. lost my historical text, phone calls etc..   I said screw it, filed a BBB complaint. I will never get my number back or my historical texts/phone calls. 

B

Would  you be interested in a class action suit? I don't know about you, but its been a major inconvenience to me. I am having accounts compromised because of the verification codes that are being sent to the older number and so on... I am probably not far from full blown identify theft. 

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