🇺🇸United States

Artificial traffic pumping and IRSF driving uncollectible wholesale and retail charges

4 verified sources

Definition

Telecom traffic pumping / international revenue‑sharing fraud (IRSF) generates large volumes of calls to high‑cost destinations where fraudsters share in the termination revenue, leaving carriers with billed but unpaid or disputed usage and bad debt. Fraud rings exploit gaps in real‑time detection so hours of inflated traffic accrue before being blocked, turning what should be revenue into direct write‑offs and chargebacks.

Key Findings

  • Financial Impact: Global telecom fraud losses (dominated by IRSF, Wangiri and related artificial traffic schemes) are consistently estimated around $28–40 billion per year, with IRSF alone historically accounting for several billion annually; individual operators report single incidents in the $100,000–$1,000,000+ range when traffic pumping runs unchecked for a weekend.
  • Frequency: Daily
  • Root Cause: Rules‑based or batch fraud systems detect spikes in high‑cost traffic only after billing records are processed instead of on live signaling, allowing traffic pumping to run for hours; complex wholesale chains, least‑cost routing to suspicious partners, and billing latency on roaming and international calls further delay detection and collection.

Why This Matters

This pain point represents a significant opportunity for B2B solutions targeting Telecommunications Carriers.

Affected Stakeholders

Revenue assurance managers, Wholesale carrier managers, Fraud management analysts, Billing and collections teams, CFO / finance controllers, Interconnect and roaming managers

Deep Analysis (Premium)

Financial Impact

$100,000-$1,000,000+ per chargeback • $100,000-$1,000,000+ per dispute • $100,000-$1,000,000+ per incident

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Current Workarounds

Email-based incident coordination; spreadsheet tracking of incident timeline; WhatsApp group coordination with external partners and regulators • Manual CDR batch review (15-min export lag); reactive carrier alerts; spreadsheet-based traffic analysis; WhatsApp/phone escalations to carriers for blocking • Manual CDR batch review (15-min export lag); reactive email/SNMP alerts; spreadsheet call pattern logging; escalations to upstream carriers and hosting providers

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Methodology & Sources

Data collected via OSINT from regulatory filings, industry audits, and verified case studies.

Evidence Sources:

Related Business Risks

Escalating fraud management and dispute handling costs from inefficient detection

Industry research and vendors note that manual fraud operations and reactive investigations can consume several percent of a carrier’s fraud‑related OPEX, with large operators running 24/7 fraud teams and paying six‑ to seven‑figure annual fees for outsourced monitoring and tools; these costs scale with fraud attempts even when no revenue is recovered.

False answer and call quality scams generating refunds and SLA penalties

In affected routes, a material share of minutes (TransNexus cites high answer seizure ratios with very short calls as key indicators) can be falsely billed, forcing operators to credit customers or absorb losses on disputed wholesale invoices; for major carriers, this can scale to hundreds of thousands of dollars per route per year.

Delayed fraud recognition leading to late billing disputes and slow recoveries

While exact figures vary, industry reports highlight that delayed fraud detection in roaming and international traffic can add weeks to collections cycles for large disputed invoices, commonly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single event, effectively extending time‑to‑cash for a portion of high‑margin traffic.

Network and trunk capacity consumed by artificial pumped traffic

Vendors report that fraud systems must monitor five‑minute samples for suspicious spikes because pumped traffic can rapidly consume available capacity; for operators with constrained international gateways, lost legitimate traffic during attacks represents foregone revenue that can easily exceed tens of thousands of dollars per major incident.

Regulatory exposure from inadequate fraud controls and inaccurate billing

Regulators in many jurisdictions have forced operators to reimburse customers for fraudulent or artificially inflated charges and in some cases levied fines for mis‑billing and failure to protect consumers; depending on the market, these can range from hundreds of thousands to multi‑million‑dollar exposures over repeated incidents.

Systemic telecom fraud (IRSF, Wangiri, SIM box) exploiting slow or weak detection

Industry bodies and vendors consistently cite global telecom fraud losses in the tens of billions of dollars annually, with IRSF, Wangiri, PBX hacking, and related artificial traffic representing a substantial share; single carriers can lose hundreds of thousands to millions per year if controls are weak, even after partial recoveries.

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