SMS toll fraud isn't new, and that's exactly the problem. Everyone knows the name; the losses keep climbing anyway.
A single unmonitored spike can blow through a messaging budget in days, and inflate signups or conversions just enough to look like a campaign win, until finance asks where the growth actually came from.
Arkose Bot Manager and Arkose Device ID, built on the Arkose Titan platform, stop it before the SMS is ever sent, whether the attack is run by bots or by humans, so the cost and the false read on your metrics never happen in the first place.
SMS toll fraud, also called SMS pumping or artificially inflated traffic (AIT), floods your verification flows with fake one-time-passcode requests routed to premium-rate numbers an attacker controls. They collect a share of the carrier fees. Your business pays for every message sent, whether the recipient is real or not. And it isn't only bots: human fraud farms run the same play, slipping past defenses that only look for automation.
Attackers target specific phone country codes rather than IP addresses, so IP-based monitoring never sees the pattern.
The phone country is only revealed at the verification step, where most detection systems aren't looking, and attackers hide inside countries you already serve real customers in.
Campaigns run low and slow, or in short bursts, specifically to stay under rule-based detection thresholds.
By the time it shows up on the invoice, the damage is already done.
A quick look at how the fraud works, what it costs, and where it hides.
SMS Toll Fraud Explainer, with narration
SMS toll fraud protection is delivered through Arkose Bot Manager and Arkose Device ID, two Titan Platform capabilities that work together: Bot Manager stops the automated attacks, and Device ID exposes the human-driven fraud hiding behind rotating numbers and identities. Both are distinct from Arkose Agent Trust Manager (ATM), Arkose's platform for AI agent visibility and control. All run on the same Titan foundation and can work side by side, but they solve different problems and carry different messaging.
Stops automated fraud and abuse across login, signup, and SMS/OTP verification flows, including bot-driven SMS toll fraud, backed by a $1 million warranty.
Proprietary device identification that recognizes returning devices behind rotating numbers and identities, catching the human-driven toll fraud that bot detection alone can miss.
Classifies AI agent traffic by intent across your platform and APIs. A different product, for a different problem.
ALL BUILT ON THE ARKOSE TITAN PLATFORM
An AI-powered detection layer inside Arkose Bot Manager. It learns what normal SMS traffic looks like for every country you serve, flags the anomalies that signal an attack in real time, and drives mitigation automatically, catching the country-level spikes that generic detection misses while leaving legitimate users untouched.
A model of normal for every country, built from weeks of history, day-of-week and time-of-day included.
Live traffic is compared against that baseline continuously, tracking both short bursts and slow-building trends.
The exact attack window is isolated and enforcement is applied only to the fraudulent sessions.
Conceptual rendering for illustration. Not actual product data.
Proven in production today, protecting phone-number verification flows at scale.
Arkose's economic-deterrence model intercepts fraud upstream, before the SMS is sent, so no charge is ever generated in the first place.
Real-Time Anomaly Intelligence flags and isolates attacks automatically, replacing the ad hoc investigation toll fraud spikes have required until now.
Region-based velocity tracking separates attackers from real customers inside the same country, so legitimate users are never blocked.
The industry's only $1 million SMS Toll Fraud Warranty stands behind every deployment.
Frequent target for bot-driven account creation, and toll fraud erodes already thin per-player margins.
Account-takeover attacks rose sharply in 2025, and unexplained costs draw regulatory scrutiny.
Rapid international expansion drives some of the largest toll fraud spikes recorded industrywide.
Riders, drivers, guests, and hosts all rely on SMS, exposing both supply and demand sides at once.
Book a working session with our team. We'll show how Arkose Bot Manager and Arkose Device ID protect your SMS and OTP flows against bots and human fraud alike, and the $1M SMS Toll Fraud Warranty behind them.
Share a few details about your platform and goals. A specialist will follow up within one business day.