Systems and Methods to Detect Fraudulent Payment Requests

1 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:

analyzing, by a computing device, payment records to detect a potentially fraudulent activity in payments made via a phone number;

submitting, from the computing device, a query to a server of a telecommunication carrier of the phone number to obtain an indication of abnormality in a usage pattern of a mobile phone at the phone number; and

processing, by the computing device, the potentially fraudulent payment activity based on a response to the query.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the query identifies the phone number, a location, and a time to request the indication of abnormality regarding a use of the mobile phone at the location and the time specified in the query.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the potentially fraudulent activity is a request to make a payment, using funds associated with the phone number, to a merchant at the location and the time specified in the query.

4 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising:

communicating with the mobile phone at the phone number to confirm the request to make the payment.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the time specified in the query is based on a time of the communicating with the mobile phone.

6 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the communicating with the mobile phone comprises at least one of:

transmitting a message to the mobile phone via a short message service provided by the telecommunication carrier; and

receiving a message from the mobile phone via a short message service provided by the telecommunication carrier.

7 . The method of claim 3 , wherein when the abnormality in the usage pattern of the mobile phone exceeds a threshold, the processing of the potentially fraudulent payment activity includes blocking the request to make the payment.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein when the abnormality in the usage pattern of the mobile phone exceeds a threshold, the computing device is further configured to block subsequent requests to make payments using funds associated with the phone number, until a confirmation that the mobile phone is in possession by an authorized user is received.

9 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the potentially fraudulent activity is detected based on detecting a time interval, between the request to make the payment and a previous request associated with the phone number, that exceeds a threshold.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the potentially fraudulent activity is detected based on detecting a spike in spending represented by the payment records associated with the phone number.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the potentially fraudulent activity is detected based on detecting, among at least a predetermined number of payments for the phone number occurred within a predetermined period of time, the lack of payments higher than a threshold.

12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the response to the query indicates a level of likelihood that the mobile phone has been stolen.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the response to the query includes statistics data characterizing usage patterns of the mobile phone.

14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the response to the query includes usage data of the mobile phone.

15 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

extracting a signal from the usage data, the signal representing a measurement of usage of the mobile phone as a function of time; and

determining, by the computing device, whether the potentially fraudulent payment activity is consistent with a pattern in the signal.

16 . The method of claim 15 , wherein the pattern is based on one of:

initiation time of telephone calls involving the mobile phone;

length of telephone calls involving the mobile phone;

time of text message communications involving the mobile phone;

location of the mobile phone;

data communication usage of the mobile phone; and

duration of Internet connections made by the mobile phone.

17 . A tangible computer-storage medium storing instructions which, when executed on a computing device, instruct the computing device to:

analyze payment records to detect a potentially fraudulent activity in payments made via a phone number;

submit a query to a server of a telecommunication carrier of the phone number to obtain an indication of abnormality in a usage pattern of a mobile phone at the phone number; and

process the potentially fraudulent payment activity based on a response to the query.

18 . A computing device, comprising:

a data storage facility configured to store payment transaction records associated with phone numbers; and

an interchange coupled with the data storage facility, the interchange including a common format processor and a plurality of converters to interface with a plurality of controllers, the converters configured to communicate with the controllers in different formats, the converters to communicate with the common format processor in a common format, the common format processor configured to transmit premium messages via the converters to the phone numbers to collect funds for making payments identified in the payment transaction records;

wherein the common format processor includes a fraud detection engine configured to use the payment transaction records to detect a potentially fraudulent activity in payments made via a phone number;

wherein the common format processor is configured to submit a query to a server of a telecommunication carrier of the phone number to obtain an indication of abnormality in a usage pattern of a mobile phone at the phone number and configured to process the potentially fraudulent payment activity based on a response to the query.

19 . The computing device of claim 18 , wherein the interchange includes an application programming interface to receive the response from the server of the telecommunication carrier.

20 . The computing device of claim 18 , wherein the abnormality is in a use of the mobile phone in connection with the potentially fraudulent activity in payments, relative to prior usage patterns of the mobile phone as observed by the telecommunication carrier.