Vodafone booked in SIM fraud case

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Police have booked Vodafone India in a pre-activated SIM card fraud case.

The Police found that the accused, Sanju Bordoloi, an organizing secretary of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), was using a SIM card which was not in his name and was activated much before he reached the city.

Abhishek Goyal, deputy commissioner of police, central crime branch, said: "Our suspect came to the city on January 25 around 1pm, but the SIM card he was using was activated around 9am without him being present. On landing in the city, he just walked into a retail Vodafone outlet in Electronic City and picked up the card, without producing any documents,"

Seven staffers of a distributor and retailer of the company's products were also arrested as customers' documents were allegedly  duplicated to activate fresh connections.

City police commissioner MN Reddi said that a case has been booked against Vodafone for for forgery, fraudulently using documents as genuine, cheating and criminal conspiracy, among other charges.

Goyal said that when the police tried to track the Bodo operative using details provided in his SIM card, they were led to a different person.

It is mandatory to verify the documents submitted by an applicant and forward them accordingly.

"But in this case, the service provider's marketing team, aiming to capture the market share, got the distributor and retailers involved and made extra copies of the documents and photographs submitted by genuine customers. These were then used to activate SIM cards in anticipation of retail sale without the knowledge of the genuine customer," said Goyal.

"The distributors and marketing executives fill up blank forms, themselves call Vodafone for telephone verification using demo phones provided by the company and activate the SIM cards. In some cases, over 1,000 SIM cards have been activated using one mobile phone. These cards are then given to retailers over the counter. Clearly, the short cut is being adopted by dealers to attract more customers with active knowledge of Vodafone," he explained.

Vodafone, however, said:  "In this case of fraudulent SIM activation, a criminal matter is being investigated by the police. We are extending all cooperation to the investigating authorities. All our partners, distributors, and vendors too are mandated to respect and follow the law and established code of conduct as per company policy. We treat all criminal violations with utmost seriousness and strict action will be taken against, in case noncompliance is established."