A telecom operator in Peru had more than 7,000 mobile phone lines in a user’s name that it does not admit to having contracted them, as discovered in an investigation by the neighboring country’s supervisory agency for private investment in telecommunications (Osiptel).

“We have identified more than 80 cases of people who have 100 to more than 7,000 mobile lines in operating company records. In some cases, the names do not match the identity documents provided”, indicated Rafael Muente, executive president of Osiptel.

The purpose of the entity with these assessments is to identify the number of mobile lines registered to each subscriber or owner of the service in order to notify them and to verify that they have been “contracted with their consent”.

“With the answers of the users, we will verify if they are identity theft for contracting mobile linesoutdated procedures or bad reports from the operating companies to Osiptel,” explains Muente.

Based on the information collected and provided by the companies on these matters, Osiptel will evaluate the imposition of the “corresponding corrective actions”.

“In 2022 alone, Movistar, Claro, Entel and Bitel registered nearly 80,000 claims for unsolicited contracts in the public postpaid mobile service and more than 10,000 questions about prepaid property, lines likely contracted for the most part on an outpatient basis,” the agency said.

In 2022, after a “mass comparison” of the operators’ subscriber registration, Osiptel discovered about 5 million registrations with material errors and more than 400,000 with “inconsistent data”.

“Of the latter group (…) more than 90% of the lines were terminated due to the inability to correct the data”, the Peruvian organization has indicated.

In May this year, Osiptel identified approximately 20,000 subscriber mobile lines with “inconsistent names in the records of Movistar, Claro, Entel and Bitel”.

“Following the regulator’s observations, the service has been canceled for 50% of these lines to date as the companies have not accredited their contracting mechanism and the information on the regularized lines is under review,” he said. has linked the errors and inconsistencies in administration to street selling of SIM cards.

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This sales practice is considered by Ospital to be “a threat to public safetyas it “opens the door” to crimes such as identity theft, computer fraud, fraud and even extortion, in his opinion.