A SIM swap is identity theft for your cell phone. A thief convinces your carrier they’re you, and suddenly your calls and texts (and login codes) go to them.
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Your phone has been strangely quiet all afternoon. No texts, no calls. Then you notice: no bars either. You figure the network’s acting up. Meanwhile, somewhere else, someone is resetting your bank password.
A SIM swap is identity theft for your cell phone. A thief convinces your phone company that they’re you and that you got a new phone. From then on, your calls and texts go to their phone instead of yours.
Your phone number has quietly become the master key to your life. When you forget a password, where does the reset code go? Your phone. When a bank wants to double check it’s you? A text to your phone.
So if someone controls your number, they can click “forgot password” on your email, your bank, your social media, and every code lands in their hand. They can even open new accounts in your name, and the verification texts go straight to them.
The thief calls your carrier or walks into a store pretending to be you. They often have pieces of your information from old data breaches: your address, birthday, maybe the last four of your Social Security number. Sometimes a bribed or fooled store employee helps. A few minutes later, your number lives on their SIM card.
If that happens, call your carrier from another phone right away.
A cousin of this trick is call forwarding: a scammer gets you to dial a short code that quietly forwards your calls to them. If anyone asks you to dial a code that starts with * or #, hang up.
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