Phone fraud costs PT Telkom Rp 1.3b
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.