Service Provider Lossed to Fraud Have Grown Because Revenue and Accounts Have Grown

The amount of fraud in the connectivity services area arguably has grown by two orders of magnitude since 1980. Of course, that is partly because, globally, subscriptions have grown by perhaps four orders of magnitude, while revenue has grown by at least an order of magnitude. 

Fraud Type	1980	2023
Roaming fraud	$100 million	$10 billion
Long distance fraud	$500 million	$5 billion
SIM fraud	$0	$1 billion

Perhaps as always, roaming fraud accounts for the biggest share of losses. Also, since internet access arguably accounts for most of the roaming value and revenue, losses also are likely concentrated there as well. 

Fraud Type	1980	2023
Roaming fraud	0.1%	1%
Long distance fraud	0.5%	0.5%
SIM fraud	0%	0.1%

Roaming fraud: Roaming fraud occurs when a mobile phone user makes or receives calls while outside of their home network. The fraudster will typically use a stolen or cloned SIM card to make calls at a much lower rate than they would have to pay in their home country.

Long distance fraud was arguably the biggest problem when voice was the revenue driver.  Long distance fraud occurs when a mobile phone user makes or receives calls to a premium rate number.

SIM swapping involves taking over the victim's phone number by convincing the victim's mobile carrier to switch the SIM card to a different device.

Voice over IP and fraudulent SIM registration are other ways fraudsters produce losses for service providers, but arguably pale in comparison to roaming fraud.