Yesterday, Kevin Frye filed a complaint in the Southern District of Florida against T-Mobile USA, Inc. for allegedly conducting a “SIM-Swap” without his consent, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
The plaintiff was a victim of a SIM swap, an illegal scheme where criminals “gain access to or ‘hijack’ customer wireless accounts, which often include sensitive personal and financial information, to induce third parties to conduct transactions with individuals they believe to be legitimate or known to them.”
According to the filing, a SIM card has “a complete record of a user’s cell phone history, inclusive of text messages, calls, and any Apps which a user has downloaded.” Because SIM swaps have to be approved by the victim’s wireless carrier, T-Mobile is allegedly liable for damages under the Federal Communications Act (FCA) which obligates wireless carriers to “to protect the “confidential proprietary information of [its] customers,” as evidenced by the FCC fining T-Mobile over $91 million for violating this section of the FCA in 2020.
On July 6, the plaintiff said they lost cell service, and the next day went to a T-Mobile store to get it fixed. Frye then had to “reset his password by literally telling a representative over the phone his new password, there was never an option to discreetly enter his own password, which allowed representatives from T-Mobile to access the account and/or change the password at any time.” A T-Mobile representative supposedly said that hackers couldn’t gain access to his apps, but “failed to caution Frye to check his email account and change his passwords.”
On July 12, the plaintiff found that his Wells Fargo and Coinbase accounts had been drained of their funds. He lost a few thousand dollars from his Wells Fargo account, and approximately $87,000 in Bitcoin. The plaintiff claimed that “T-Mobile Representatives were either complicit with the theft or grossly negligent” since they have been on “notice for years that their security measures were not adequate.”
The plaintiff is seeking compensatory, statutory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees and costs, pre-judgment interest and other relief.
The plaintiff is represented by Shrayer Law Firm, P.C.