PETERBOROUGH, ON – The CRTC must protect consumers instead of allowing carriers to inflict fraud-generated fees on victims, says the president of telecom expense management firm Gill Technologies.
According to George Gill, sophisticated attacks on voice mail and other incidents of “telehacking” can leave consumers owing thousands of dollars in charges. He is calling on the Commission to investigate the issue and develop tougher regulations.
“Beyond basic, user-centric precautions such as strong passwords, responsibility for secure telecommunications obviously rests with carriers”, Gill wrote in a letter dated September 21, 2009. “Under the current regime, carriers suffer a conflict of interest where preventing fraud denies them charges to levy against end users. In other words, the CRTC’s failure to regulate in this area rewards carriers for inadequate security. “
Saying the current resolution mechanisms “waste time and money”, Gill has proposed that the CRTC:
– regulate carrier security practices, alleging that carriers currently have no economic motive to implement best practices.
– establish reasonable limits on end user and reseller liabilities for fraudulent charges.
– implement a dispute resolution system that investigates and fairly distributes fraudulent charges based on each party’s actual responsibilities.
“Currently, there’s no difference between a dollar earned on third party fraud and one earned through legitimate services”, Gill added.