Missbrauch von Family-Plänen durch inoffizielle Weitergabe und Mehrnutzer-Sharing

Definition

Australian providers advertise family and shared plans with significantly discounted per-SIM pricing for additional services and large pooled data volumes (e.g., four SIMs for AUD 165/month at Optus, or multiple bundled plans at Vodafone and Telstra).[4][6][7][8][9] In practice, these offers may be extended beyond the intended household: the primary account holder can add friends, flatmates or even external parties under the same account to exploit bundle discounts, effectively turning the primary customer into an informal reseller. While this is often tolerated commercially up to a point, at scale it undermines pricing structures compared to standard plans and complicates KYC/AML where the actual end user of a SIM is not the same as the contracted customer. LOGIC: If 5–10% of family-plan accounts have at least one non-household user exploiting bundle economics and thereby avoiding a standalone plan that would cost AUD 10–15/month more, the implicit margin erosion for a base of 50,000 family-accounts (average 3 lines, 150,000 lines total) is approximately AUD 900,000–2,700,000 annually (50,000 × 0.05–0.10 × 1 ‚miss-priced‘ SIM × 10–15 AUD × 12). Additionally, fraudulent or abusive usage (e.g., SIMs used for high-risk traffic under a ‘clean’ main account) can lead to higher chargeback and bad-debt losses that are difficult to attribute correctly under the shared hierarchy.

Why This Matters

The Pitch: Australische Mobilfunkanbieter verlieren 1–3 % Marge auf rabattierte Family-Pläne durch inoffizielles Weiterverkaufen und Sharing. Automation of eligibility checks, hierarchy monitoring and anomaly detection stops this bleed.

Affected Stakeholders

Head of Fraud & Revenue Assurance, Pricing & Proposition Manager, Risk & Compliance Manager (AML/CTF), Chief Commercial Officer

Related Business Risks