Michael Terpin Urges FCC to Curb Crypto Fraud That Cost Him $24 Million

Crypto investor Michael Terpin has written an open letter to Federal Communication Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai requesting urgent action on SIM swapping fraud.

Terpin, a victim of SIM swapping himself, asked the regulator to make mobile carriers hide customer passwords from employees and to provide a “no port” option, whereby customers would have to go through a company’s fraud department before transferring their SIM information to a new phone.

In a SIM swap, criminals pose as the owners of a victim’s mobile phone number, convincing telecom providers to grant them access to the SIM card. The same kind of hack affected Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in September.

In August 2018, Terpin sued AT&T alleging that AT&T employees had been complicit in a SIM swap fraud that saw hackers steal $24 million in cryptocurrency. In July, a Los Angeles federal judge ruled that AT&T must answer Terpin’s lawsuit, which also alleges a violation of the Federal Communications…