LocateCell.com says it will give you the call records of any cell phone or landline for a fee. Where do they get this information, and how can it be legal to give out without a subpoena? Link (Thanks, Ray!)
Reader comment: Charles says: "Here's a recent article from the Sun Times about locatecell.com and its ilk. Sounds like it's telco employees looking to make a quick buck.
In some cases, telephone company insiders secretly sell customers' phone-call lists to online brokers, despite strict telephone company rules against such deals, according to Schumer.
And some online brokers have used deception to get the lists from the phone companies, he said.
"Though this problem is all too common, federal law is too narrow to include this type of crime," Schumer said last year in a prepared statement.
The Chicago Police Department is looking into the sale of phone records, a source said.
Late last month, the department sent a warning to officers about Locatecell.com, which sells lists of calls made on cell phones and land lines.
Reader comment: "Up here in Canada, Maclean's did an expose on this company last November. They managed to grab the home phoneline, and Blackberry records of our federal privacy commissioner for $200.
As to your question: "No one seems to be sure exactly how the data brokers are getting their information. One theory is that they have an inside connection. Another is that they are hacking online customer accounts. The most likely explanation is that they simply call up and ask for it. Phone companies, it seems, are rather easily duped. If a caller posing as a customer furnishes them with the right name, number and address — sometimes they will also ask for a postal code or date of birth — they will take that person at their word. (The misrepresentation and trickery apparently works with some cellphone owners as well. Stoddart reports that someone, presumably an agent for one of the data brokers, recently called her Montreal home claiming to be a phone company representative, and demanded her cellphone number. Her son refused to provide it, despite threats that his mother's service would be cut off.)"
