Michael Terpin, well known in the crypto sector, is reporting a legal win in his ongoing battle with AT&T and a SIM swap scam that saw him robbed of millions of dollars in value of crypto.
SIM Swap scams involve someone having their phone taken over by a scammer. By changing the SIM, two-factor identification becomes a skeleton key for just about everything you do on your phone. Criminals have cooked up a process where passwords can be changed in minutes and then accounts emptied of funds. As the actual SIM swap requires a change by the mobile provider, at times, insiders have enabled the fraud.
Terpin is reporting that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided in his favor to reverse a prior summary judgment, so the case will continue. The three-judge panel apparently ruled that customer proprietary network information (CPNI), which is protected under the Federal Communications Act, may have been violated.
Terpin states that the court decided:
“Adopting AT&T’s constrained view of CPNI would lead to absurd results. Our decision is also consistent with the FCC’s views. In a report addressing new proposed CPNI rules, the FCC recognized that SIM swap fraud ‘allows the bad actor to gain access to information associated with the customer’s account, including CPNI, and gives the bad actor control.’”
Attorney Pierce O’Donnell, a senior partner at Greenberg Glusker, who led the appeal says the decision is significant:
“Rejecting all of AT&T’s arguments, the Court of Appeal held that AT&T can be liable for damages under the Federal Communications Act when it allows a hacker to get into its system, access the customer’s AT&T account, and steal the customer’s private information or assets–in this case $24 million of cryptocurrency. The decision paves the way for our client to go to trial and hold AT&T accountable after more than six years of litigation. We look forward to asking a Los Angeles federal jury to award Mr. Terpin $24 million plus at least $14 million of interest plus his attorney’s fees for a total of at least $45 million.”
Terpin said the victor was not just for him but the many individuals that have been the target of SIM swap fraudsters.
“… thousands of innocent consumers who had their identity compromised, their safety and privacy breached, and in many cases, their funds stolen due to lax and indifferent security practices by AT&T.”
