Help - can SIMs be cloned?

veryunsure

Daughter on £35 contract with O2, 500 texts, 500 mins.
Last month daughter had outrageous bill. She said sorry and deleted offending number from her phone book.

This month bill is worse - £162. Majority of calls (110 calls) and 707 texts all to one number. She swears it is not her this time.

O2 say calls made from her SIM. Could her SIM be cloned or is she not telling me the truth?

I don 't know what to believe, O2 have put a £10 limit before barring her phone from now on so at least bills will be limited but that is not the point. Can I prove the calls were (or were not) made from her phone.

Quentin

Confiscate the phone and see if the calls stop.

espresso

It should be obvious from the number called and texted, if it was your daughter!

veryunsure

The thing is that we don't recognise the number and she swears it isn't in her phone book. I have tried calling it but get no reply! Hey-ho.

Confiscating isn't an option. She has long school journey and yes I know, we all managed before mobile phones existed, but ...

Does SIM cloning happen? Could this person behind the number be making reverse-charge calls to her phone? !!

utilitybroker

veryunsure wrote: »

Could this person behind the number be making reverse-charge calls to her phone? !!

No ! Even if they could how about the 707 texts.

Have you personally looked in the phonebook and looked at the recent call/text logs.

Is it the same number that was called/text on the previous bill, has it appeared on past bills in the last six months.

espresso

veryunsure wrote: »

The thing is that we don't recognise the number and she swears it isn't in her phone book. I have tried calling it but get no reply! Hey-ho.

How convenient!

Confiscating isn't an option. She has long school journey and yes I know, we all managed before mobile phones existed, but ...

A schoolgirl on a £35/month contract who still gets outrageous bills - get real.

Does SIM cloning happen? Could this person behind the number be making reverse-charge calls to her phone? !!

It's not impossible to do but very unlikely. O2 will know the IMEI number of the handset used to make these calls, so has that been cloned as well? - very doubtful.

thefirs

Try entering the offending number into google - if it's a regular scam/abuse then someone else will have been affected and can share their experience

h901

sim cards cannot be cloned because each sim card has a unique serial number in which the network link to the contract or bills.
therefore there is no way a cloned sim card would work as the network would not allow calls to go through (or they would go through but wouldnt show up on your bill) because your unique sim card is connected to your account

veryunsure

thanks to all the helpful replies.

To espresso - how I fund the 'schoolgirl' on a £35 contract is really my business but just so you know, it is a 12 month cashback 12 month contract. So it is free - or was until this happened. Account now has a lid on it so can't be overspent now.

veryunsure

did google it, nothing came up. Seems now that she does recognise the number and it is an ex friends. She swears not to have contacted him. So I think there is probably no fraud or cloning. Just a teenager.

DenBo_4

When my daughter started uni in London I did the same as you, every month the bills came in over £100 (one was £192)! When the contract ended so did my involvement in a teenager with a phone that isn't pay-as-you-go! Just another lesson learnt.......................:p