A recent legal filing made by ‘Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP’ on behalf of Seth Shapiro, sees the complainant levying accusations of fraudulent activity (SIM-swap) resulting in the theft of funds (some of which in cryptocurrency) valued at over $1.8 million.
Filed on October 17th, 2019: the filing documents Shaprio accusing AT&T employees of intentionally accessing his wireless account without authorization, and eventually passed access of his SIM-based identity onto a third party device.
This reportedly resulted in the diversion of funds from a variety of fiat and digital currency accounts, due to what is commonly known as a ‘SIM swap’.
“Mr. Shapiro brings this action to hold AT&T accountable for its violations of federal and state law, and to recover for the grave financial and personal harm suffered by Mr. Shapiro and his family as a direct result of AT&T’s acts and omissions, as detailed herein.”
Complaint Filing (Seth Shapiro vs. AT&T)
In the filing, we can see that Seth Shapiro (described as a “wireless cell service subscriber”) and his legal team sees this as a “repeated failure” to protect the complaint.
It continues to detail the consequences as including: “massive and ongoing violations of Mr. Shapiro’s privacy, the compromise of his highly sensitive personal and financial information, and the theft of more than $1.8 million”.
“In an egregious violation of the law and its own promises, and despite advertising itself as a leader in technological development and as a cyber security savvy company, AT&T repeatedly failed to protect Mr. Shapiro’s account and the sensitive data it contained.
AT&T failed to implement sufficient data security systems and procedures and failed to supervise its own personnel, instead standing by as its employees used their position at the company to gain unauthorized access to Mr. Shapiro’s account in order to rob, extort, and threaten him in exchange for money”
Complaint Filing (Seth Shapiro vs. AT&T)
AT&T has come under fire from various critics, with a prominent reason being its national monopolisation of the telecommunications market (covering television, telephone, internet, and more). Problems which arise from this include higher costs and decreased service quality improvement, resulting from a lack of market competition.
Back in July, AT&T had been subject to a very similar lawsuit concerning another SIM-swap incident resulting in a $24 million theft.
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