Cellular One announces special measures to protect Bay Area customers from fraud while traveling; new special feature introduced in LA will soon be available for Cellular One customers in San Francisco Bay Area.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 30, 1995-- Cellular One has announced it is rolling out new anti-fraud measures to protect its cellular customers who are traveling.

The new PIN code-based system currently being introduced in the Los Angeles market will soon be available in the San Francisco Bay Area through Cellular One.

According to Cellular One President Sue Swenson, Los Angeles has seen a dramatic rise in cloning, or the process of illegally replicating a cellular phone number and programming it into another phone.

"It has jumped three-fold in the past two months alone in Los Angeles," Swenson said. "We believe the introduction of the Fraud Protection Feature will enable us to reduce fraud risk for our customers while they are traveling in Los Angeles." She noted only a small percentage of Cellular One customers traveling in Los Angeles -- less than 250 -- are experiencing the problem.

The new anti-fraud measure, called Fraud Protection Feature, will require those Cellular One customers who travel in the Los Angeles area and are suspected of having been cloned to input a personalized four-digit PIN code number into the phone before making outbound calls.

"Through instantaneous monitoring of customer calling patterns, we can quickly identify phones that appear to be cloned," said Tim Long, head of Cellular One's fraud unit. "Those customers we've identified will be asked to use the new Fraud Protection Feature to eliminate the inconvenience cloning causes them when calls they haven't even made suddenly appear on their bills."

To make a call using the PIN number, customers will press the following commands after turning on their phone -- "(star) 560, PIN number, Send." After placing as many calls as they like, they can re-lock the phone by pressing "(star) 56, PIN number, Send."

Incoming calls are not affected by these new measures.

The Fraud Protection Feature is slated for a larger rollout in March, when other Cellular One customers in the Bay Area will have access to this feature.

New Measures Also Taken in Chicago

In Chicago, another market where cloning is an increasing problem, Cellular One has announced separate measures to protect customers from fraud. Since the Fraud Protection Feature is not ready for use in Chicago yet, Cellular One customers traveling there who wish to make any calls will temporarily need to use a credit card or calling card number to place those calls.

Cellular One has undertaken a variety of measures to fight cellular fraud. Cellular One's fraud detection unit has been working vigorously to identify any suspicious calling activity and assist law enforcement units to prosecute identified suspects. In early October the Secret Service made arrests in one of the largest cellular fraud stings ever, thanks in part to the assistance of Cellular One's fraud detection and prevention unit.

The Fraud Protection Feature is an important addition to Cellular One's fraud control measures. Currently, the company's network switch will transmit a call if it recognizes two pieces of information -- a customer's mobile phone number and that phone's Electronic Serial Number (ESN). Scanning devices can often identify these numbers, which are then programmed by cloners into other phones.

According to Swenson, "The Fraud Protection Feature narrows the fraud window tremendously. When customers are not using their phones and the Fraud Protection Feature is activated, cloning fraud cannot take place. Outgoing calls -- including those from cloned phones -- are blocked, except for emergency numbers such as 911, and incoming calls still can be received. So it's to the customer's advantage to lock their phone whenever it's not in use."

Customers can program the code into speed dial for greater efficiency and safety, especially while driving.

According to Long, "Our fraud control program comes down to a couple of key strategies: We want to utilize everything at our disposal to eliminate fraud from happening in the first place and guarantee the security of our system for customers. And, when it does occur, we want to crack down on it as quickly and as ferociously as we can."

Cellular One is the only cellular company in the Bay Area offering digital cellular service. It is a partnership of two communications companies: AirTouch Communications, San Francisco; and McCaw Cellular Communications, Kirkland, Wash.

CONTACT: Cellular One, South San Francisco

Alan Brune, 415/827-5655

pager: 245-0269

Torme & Kenney

Steven Freemire, 415/956-1791