Michigan First Paid $7,641 in 2022 Damages From T-Mobile SIM Swaps

T-Mobile’s failure to stop SIM-swap fraudsters from draining customers’ bank accounts “not only harms its subscribers, but it also harms the financial institutions of those subscribers,” said Michigan First Credit Union’s response Friday (docket 2:22-cv-13159) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Detroit to T-Mobile’s Jan. 16 motion to dismiss the credit union’s complaint (see 2301170004). Due to T-Mobile’s failures, “third parties are enabled to perform unauthorized transactions on the financial accounts of its subscribers,” it said. T-Mobile subscribers then challenge these unauthorized transactions with their banks and credit unions, and the financial institutions, when required by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, replace the funds of the subscriber that were wrongfully transferred by the third party, it said: “The financial institutions are completely without fault in these circumstances but are nonetheless required to replace the funds.” Michigan First incurred damages of at least $7,641 last year due to unauthorized SIM swaps that victimized T-Mobile customers, it said.