Stopping SMS Pumping: How IPQS Blocks a Billion-Dollar Threat Before It Hits Your Wallet

SMS pumping fraud, also known as artificial inflation of traffic (AIT) or SMS toll fraud, is costing businesses billions each year. Fraudsters exploit OTP and messaging flows to trigger thousands of SMS messages to premium or revenue-sharing numbers. The result? Skyrocketing SMS bills, fraudulent traffic, and zero business value.

Industry-wide, losses are estimated to exceed $6.7 billion annually. And the problem is accelerating as fraud-as-a-service tools make it easier than ever to launch these attacks at scale.

This isn’t just a billing problem, it’s a fraud problem. And it’s one IPQS is uniquely positioned to solve.

Why SMS Pumping Works

At its core, SMS pumping, a form of SMS toll fraud, takes advantage of how companies validate users. By abusing signup flows, password resets, or promotional campaigns, bad actors trick your systems into sending OTPs to phone numbers they control, usually tied to revenue, sharing schemes or operated in partnership with rogue carriers.

Here’s what makes it effective:

• Bots or low-cost click farms simulate real signups.
  
  
• Fraudsters use scripts or emulators to bypass rate limits.
  
  
• Numbers used in SMS pumping are real carrier numbers in order to generate revenue shares from SMS aggregators or rogue carriers.
  
  
• Abuse can go undetected until thousands of messages are sent.
  
  
• The damage isn’t just financial. It skews KPIs, floods support teams, and undermines trust in your user base.

How IPQS Stops SMS Pumping

IPQS protects against this fraud vector using a multi-layered approach that blocks risky traffic before messages are ever sent. Our latest update includes dedicated protection inside our Phone Verification API, along with enhanced detection inside our Device Fingerprint API. Here's how it works:

Phone Verification API: Stop Bad Numbers Before You Send

• Identifies high-risk, virtual, or disposable phone numbers.
  
  
• Detects VOIP carriers commonly tied to SMS abuse.
  
  
• Flags disconnected, ported, or suspicious line types in real time.
  
  
• Leverages real-world usage patterns to detect pumping behaviors. 
  
  
• Enriches lookups with carrier, region, and activity insights.
  
  
• NEW! Flags phone numbers associated with SMS pumping attacks.

Device Fingerprint API: Spot the Tools of the Attack

• Detects emulators, headless browsers, spoofed devices, and virtual environments.
  
  
• Flags multiple OTP requests from the same device, even across sessions.
  
  
• Identifies patterns typical of SMS pumping farms and bot automation.

Together, these two products give you intelligence at both the user and device level, letting you identify and block abuse automatically, without interrupting the experience for legitimate users.

Multi-Layered Defense. Built to Keep You Ahead.

Fraud prevention isn’t one-dimensional, and neither is SMS pumping. That’s why IPQS uses layered defenses that cross-correlate data across your user stack. In addition to phone and device insights, our platform leverages:

• Proprietary algorithms that detect velocity patterns, abnormal behavior, and other high-risk signals, enriched with direct telco data.
  
  
• IP reputation and proxy detection to spot anonymized traffic.
  
  
• Behavioral analysis to surface high-frequency abuse patterns.
  
  
• Real-time scoring based on millions of verified fraud events daily.
  
  
• Proprietary honeypot networks to track emerging threats before they scale.

This allows IPQS to prevent fraud at the edge—before bad actors can extract value, impact your infrastructure, or damage your reputation.

Fraud Moves Fast. So Should You.

SMS pumping attacks won’t slow down, and the more valuable your platform becomes, the more likely it is to be targeted. Traditional messaging providers may alert you after the damage is done. But IPQS helps you prevent it before it starts.

With global intelligence, adaptive risk scoring, and unified signal coverage across phone, IP, device, and behavior, IPQS gives your team the real-time visibility and control needed to stop SMS pumping in its tracks.

About the Author

David Mackler is the Chief Technology Officer at IPQS, where he leads the development of cutting-edge fraud detection technologies. With a deep background in data science and cybersecurity, David focuses on building scalable, AI-aware solutions that power IPQS’s multi-layered approach to fraud prevention. His work helps organizations stay ahead of emerging threats—without compromising performance or the user experience.