Mobile telephones

Having worked in fraud prevention for many years, despite the wish for endless amounts of investment to stop fraud and enough resources to deal with any booking that I may think is fraudulent, the one thing I would wish for is a database of mobile telephone number detailing the owner, the postal address of the owner and when the telephone number became live.

It seems simple to me that if you are a fraudster you are going to use a selection of pay as you go mobile phones that are almost impossible to trace. At least with a free e-mail address you have the ability to collect an IP address but what help is there for mobile telephones?

There are some fraud prevention businesses making use of mobile phone data collected in transactions to create positive matches but if it was law to register any mobile telephone number with some personal data surely this would be a massive victory for fraud prevention? I`m aware that we should all have a right to make our data ex-directory but in the case of mobile telephones I don`t understand, surely the positives outweigh the negatives?

While the police may have the ability to access personal data I`m sure even they have the same problem. Fraudsters hide behind the masks of mobile telephone and I for one believe steps should be taken to stop it.

Happy fraud prevention!

David