Pennsylvania man sues T-Mobile for negligence after $55,000 Bitcoin loss

A resident of Pennsylvania, Richard Harris, has accused telecommunications company T-Mobile of negligence that led to the loss of 1.63 BTC due to SIM swap fraud. The plaintiff is seeking a jury trial, according to the filing submitted to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The complaint states that T-Mobile failed to adequately protect the customer’s information and violated a number of federal laws. The plaintiff valued the lost assets at $55,000.

According to the suit, Harris stored the cryptocurrency on Coinbase. The exchange account was tied to Harris’s T-Mobile number.

In July 2020, the attacker visited the mobile operator’s office and persuaded staff to provide him access to “the plaintiff’s account and the data of his SIM card.” He copied this information to an electronic medium, and then used it to transfer funds from Harris’s wallet.

The plaintiff does not rule out that an employee of T-Mobile participated in the fraud scheme, who knowingly handed over confidential data to the criminal.

The plaintiff seeks damages including actual losses, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and pre-judgment interest. Harris argues that the carrier’s negligence caused damages exceeding $150,000.

T-Mobile has faced cryptocurrency investor lawsuits before. In February, Kelvin Cheng also accused the company of losing 15 BTC due to a SIM swap. He estimated the damage at $450,000.

Earlier, the FBI, through the TLP protocol, designed for restricted distribution of information, issued a warning about the growing threat to theft of digital assets.

According to Bleeping Computer, the notice concerned Bitcoin exchanges, payment platforms and other entities dealing with cryptocurrencies. It received a “green” code, enabling those involved to share this information.

According to the FBI, criminal groups are monitoring vulnerabilities in the security infrastructure of such organisations. Their ultimate aim is to steal users’ funds. To this end, attackers actively use various tools, including social engineering and SIM-swap fraud.

The bureau regards the latest attack vector as the most dangerous because it is effective and relatively easy to execute. The FBI also noted that often telecoms employees join in collusion with criminals.

In January, a California resident lost $27,000 in Bitcoin due to a SIM swap at T-Mobile.

In February, Europol reported the arrest of ten suspects in the theft of more than $100 million in cryptocurrency through SIM-swapping.

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