New Delhi: Rishabh Gupta, a software developer by profession who is a resident of Gurugram, gets a call from a 'bank official' for KYC (Know Your Customer) verification with a small request, to him to download an application that would give the caller access to his screen for KYC details. Post the call, Rishabh continues to get notifications. But he ignores them, assuming it must be the bank setting up KYC details. The final result: Rishabh loses a huge sum of money.
In another incident, stealthily gaining account details, Gautam Rode, a resident of Palam Vihar ended up losing a large sum of money to a caller claiming to be from an employee from his bank.
The recent past has seen a spurt of such incidents in Dwarka. Dinesh Nayar, a doctor from Dwarka, receives a video call from an unknown number. The caller plays a video with adult content. While the doctor continues watching it, the caller records his screen and uses the resulting video to blackmail and extort money from the doctor.
Arvind Aggarwal, a Dwarka resident, said, “It is a new way of cybercrime/fraud. There was a call from a number claiming that I took HDFC policy 8 years back and paid only one premium, hence the policy is inactive. In order to activate, he asked me to contact another number for a detailed procedure. I had doubts about his call. I verified from HDFC, it was a fraud.”
The above-mentioned cases reveal an emerging crime under cyber fraud. Hosts of young Indians with basic technical skills have formed gangs to gather bank details, passwords and pins and finally steal money.
How to identify fraud calls:
Beware of unknown calls/texts
Treat your phone like you are touching an electric wire, if you click at the wrong place, you may end up opening a malicious link. If you get something that is unsolicited - a mail/message/call which you have no knowledge of then the likelihood of it being a scam is high.
Beware of jackpots!
Treat offers of cashback and free products with suspicion. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Stay clear of threats:
One that these fraudsters feed on is a person’s fear. No professional entity will use threatening language. If you get a message that says if you don't do this your account will be blocked or if you don't verify KYC, your SIM will be deactivated, then it means someone is trying to fraud you.
Kislay Chaudhary, a cyber expert said, “The fraudsters target bank account and credit card holders randomly by pushing bulk SMS and calls asking them to update their KYC details. Only the victims entered the bank account details on the fraudulent web pages, the scamsters collected the credentials through remote access and gained access to the original bank accounts of the victims. Even well-educated people and those well versed in handling online banking services became victims of such frauds and Jamtara only came to the attention of the police when the amount extorted or the number of cases became too big to ignore.”
He added, “I advised people not to believe in messages or calls which ask them to update their KYC details, many still fell prey to the scams. The bank authorities never send such messages, emails or make calls regarding KYC updates. Hence, people should never reveal their bank account details, especially the secret PIN and OTP, to anyone.”
Stay alert and report all such phone numbers to Delhi Police Fraud Helpline no. 155260
Report Cyber Crime at portal: cybercrime.gov.in
