Despite regular surveillance by management agencies, trunk simcards and ready-activated simcards are still being sold in the open air.

There are about 10.5 million mobile subscribers in Hanoi, with 2,292 telecom service points.

Tran Xuan Phuc, chief inspector of the Hanoi Department of Information and Communications, said that trade of trunk simcards, spam calls and messages is still being made and is getting more sophisticated.

In September and October, Hanoi had an inspection tour to examine simcard sales in the market and found that some mobile network operators and telecom service providers had wrong dossiers of clients. Phuc said this is quite common in Hanoi.

There are some groups on social networks which exchange and trade large amounts of trunk simcards that serve the distribution of spam messages.

“The phenomenon is common. Many e-commerce platforms and social media have open groups trading large quantities of SIM cards," Phuc noted. 

To tackle this issue, Phuc suggested enhancing management of mobile subscription information and addressing trunk SIM cards that exist in telecom companies' distribution channels. Additionally, telecom companies need to continue verifying and standardizing the information on SIM cards suspected of having inaccurate details.

The problem is not only occurring in Hanoi, but also in many other cities and provinces.

In Nghe An, Nguyen Nu Lan Oanh, chief inspector of the provincial inspection agency, reported findings of subscriptions with mismatched information and non-owner-registered subscribers, especially cases involving mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).

Oanh believes that the existence of trunk simcards is one of the causes behind spam calls/messages. There is still a high number of simcards at sales agents or distribution channels, from which simcards can be distributed in the market.

Bac Giang province has also reported trunk simcards. In October 2024, the BacGiang Department of Information and Communications joined forces with PA05 of the provincial police and discovered 1,700 ready-activated simcards in a campaign to inspect telecom service points.

The watchdog agency found that the trunk simcard trade is made publicly online. There are even websites with domain names ‘.com.vn’ offering to sell trunk simcards at super cheap prices, as well as advertisement and message services. 

The same thing is occurring on many large e-commerce platforms such as Shopee and Lazada.

MIC has requested drastic measures to eliminate trunk simcards from the market. Since April 15, 2024, telecom carriers have eliminated all simcards with information not matching with population data. It is estimated that tens of million of trunk simcards have been handled.

Trong Dat