Phone fraud costs PT Telkom Rp 1.3b

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post/Bandung

Phone fraud involving a Pakistani national has cost state telecommunications company PT Telkom some Rp 1.3 billion (US$138,500) in losses, a senior company official told reporters on Friday.

Mas'ud Khamid, deputy chief of Telkom's West Java and Banten operations, said that the huge losses were incurred because two people had not paid their Telkom Flexi bills.

"The two persons did not pay their phone bills for January and March this year," said Mas'ud.

He said that the two had forged identity cards so that when the company's employees tried to collect money owing, they discovered that the addresses were fictitious.

They were finally arrested after police tracked down them to separate locations in Bandung city.

The two, Radja, 29, and a Pakistani national, M. Ezra, 34, are now in detention at Central Bandung police headquarters.

After investigation it was revealed that the two had used 10 different identity cards to get access to Telkom Flexi. They had frequently made international calls to, among other places, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. "We will tighten the screening process, especially concerning identity cards," said Mas'ud.

He also said that the company would conduct more frequent checks on subscriber phone traffic to detect any suspicious excessive use of the service.

"With the tightened measures, we hope that phone fraud can be mitigated. Telkom will immediately cut phone access we suspect that subscribers are attempting to defraud the company," said Mas'ud.

Meanwhile, chief of Telkom's West Java and Banten operations Mahmur Suriadiredja said that his office currently operated 125 Flexi Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) in the province that could serve over 200,000 subscribers. Of the 200,000 Telkom Flexi subscribers, 190,000 live in Bandung and surrounding areas.

The service provided by Telkom Flexi is different from that provided by conventional cell phone operators. Airtime charges from conventional cellular provider are very high, whereas Telkom Flexi does not charge for this airtime, thus its charges are similar to a conventional landline.