# What is AIT (Artificially Inflated Traffic)?

> AIT (artificially inflated traffic) — also called SMS pumping or toll fraud — is a scheme where fraudsters use bots to trigger huge volumes of OTP or verification SMS to number ranges they control on a complicit operator, then collect a share of the termination fees. The victim is the business paying for the messages. Left unchecked, AIT can inflate an OTP bill many times over before anyone notices.

- Canonical URL: https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-ait
- Language: en
- Last reviewed: 2026-07-22
- Publisher: BroadNet (https://www.broadnet.me)

## How the fraud works

A bot hammers a signup, login, or 'resend code' form, requesting OTPs to numbers on a route where the fraudster and a complicit party share the operator termination revenue. The messages deliver perfectly — that is the point — so the only visible symptom is a sudden spike in OTP volume and cost to a handful of destinations. See /answers/what-is-sms-pumping.

## How to defend against it

Layered controls: validate numbers with HLR Lookup before sending, rate-limit OTP requests per IP and per number, apply geo-velocity and destination-anomaly checks, add CAPTCHA on abused forms, and fail over to Flash Call where SMS is being pumped. Monitor OTP conversion by country so a bad route stands out. See /products/hlr-lookup and /products/myotp.

## Related

- [All answers](https://www.broadnet.me/answers)
- [Glossary](https://www.broadnet.me/answers)
- [What is IRSF (International Revenue Share Fraud)?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-irsf)
- [How does telecom fraud prevention work?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/telecom-fraud-prevention)
- [What is SMS pumping / artificial inflated traffic (AIT)?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-sms-pumping)
- [What is OTP?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-otp)
- [What is Flash Call verification?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-flash-call-verification)
- [What is HLR Lookup?](https://www.broadnet.me/answers/what-is-hlr-lookup)
- [MyOTP](https://www.broadnet.me/products/myotp)
- [HLR Lookup](https://www.broadnet.me/products/hlr-lookup)
- [SMS Firewall (operators)](https://www.broadnet.me/operators/sms-firewall)