Cloning sims/phones?

thor

A friend was telling me he thought his phone had been cloned and someone was getting all his bank, facebook, email details off it.
Now I have never heard of this before but in the same manner a credit card can be cloned, I thought maybe he meant his sim card had been copied and asked him if he was sure it was the sim card not the phone.
He was still adamant that it was his phone.
I don't think it is possible to copy the sim and all the phone settings of a mobile and transfer it to another mobile(even if it is the same model) or am I wrong?

Techhead_2

Even if someone could exactly copy a phone - data and all - it still wouldnt help with passwords or codes which are encrypted. Presumably your friend is not wealthy? Then why would someone go to the trouble of gaining access to the handset, spending time and huge expense of cloning it and decrypting the data?

I would guess that either something has happened following your friend being sloppy with his security or friend is saying this to impress someone.