[Dippy]

Just got this Fedex call with an automated voice telling me my parcel is stuck and asked me to press 1. I just cut the call.

The number for reference: +919916449888

[1.2TSI7DSG]

Originally Posted by Prash1407

Hello BHP'ains,

He said that he is part of an Investment Alliance which works with companies to jack up the prices. So, obviously the funds would run into Millons.

For me it was scam written all over here.
Did you check for any document that confirmed this? He is possibly acting as fund raiser for a trading account that does trades on loans. One wrong trade is all it will take to go down because no where is the liability quantified here.

[TallBoy]

This frequent change in account numbers is by itself a big alarm. They seem to be using mule accounts.

You mentioned SBI account with multiple transactions. Was it opened in your name? If so, it could mean serious trouble.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../110409624.cms

Originally Posted by Prash1407

2. When I need to transfer funds, I get a separate bank account almost every day. As soon as the funds are transferred, I put it to the Demat account. But, why multiple accounts?
3. One of the SBI account was opened 2 months ago and there have been constant fund flows (Credit and Debit)

I still have doubts in my mind resulting in this post. I have made my own checks, but the doubt does not go away. Requesting views from this group.

[DCIT_Prabodh]

Originally Posted by Prash1407

Questions:
1. As everyone knows, there are no free lunches in the world.. so why me?
2. When I need to transfer funds, I get a separate bank account almost every day. As soon as the funds are transferred, I put it to the Demat account. But, why multiple accounts?
3. One of the SBI account was opened 2 months ago and there have been constant fund flows (Credit and Debit)

I still have doubts in my mind resulting in this post. I have made my own checks, but the doubt does not go away. Requesting views from this group.

It's a well known scam (a scam with relatable principles was shown in 1990's Jaspal Bhatti's Flop Show). Here is how it works. Entry operators generally choose penny stocks (stocks with low trading volumes and low prices). They then choose a particular day/week to jack up its prices. This is done by making more and more people invest in the stock they advertise through telegram and whatsapp groups . You might find some groups on Telegram with catchy messages such as "Last opportunity...", or "This stock is going to rise 20 times in 5 days..." etc. In one of such groups tracked by SEBI, the person writing such messages was a 10th pass guy whose speciality was writing catchy messages. Such concerted effort leads to an unnatural increase in the price of such penny stocks without any apparent reason. When the stock is at its unnatural peak, the entry operators start selling the stock in bulk - while still encouraging people to buy it. Obviously the stock price crashes, and retail investors lose (and that's why this practice is in the radar of SEBI).
My advice would be to be very cautious. Any promise of astronomical return must be independently checked by you for the possible reasons - most likely you would find none. A more sophisticated group may first try to win your trust by giving small returns on some stock advice, but it's all a buildup for the ultimate con, after which such groups vanish in thin air.

[ZenMaster]

Originally Posted by Prash1407

Hello BHP'ains,

I still have doubts in my mind resulting in this post. I have made my own checks, but the doubt does not go away. Requesting views from this group.

Just quit the group and stop this before it devours your hard earned savings. The potential for a 8-10% return or the 10x profit offered by a shady group with changing banking credentials is not worth endangering all the money you have earned till now.

You think you have control. You think that you have done all the checks and so you can't be conned. But the questions you have posted here and your wanting to trust this group's "promise" shows that you are hooked.

Now its only a matter of time before the reel you in, along with your current wealth, your hopes, dreams, your self respect and even your family's happiness.

Remember, these people rely not on you being an idiot. They rely on that 1 weak moment when a normal, common man get overcome by momentary greed or desperation where he goes against his own better judgement or common sense.


From your public profile, I see that you are an IT professional whose hobby is trading.

Your 1st and most important investment is your profession which provides your basic needs. Everything you get from Trading and the market is a BONUS. Do not jeopardize your career and family for the extra income.

I know its difficult to let go of easy money. But trust me this will be the best financial decision you have ever made.

The very fact that they are jacking up prices make this operation illegal under the regulator's scope. So you will be saving yourself from legal trouble as well.

If your IT job isn't paying you much and you want to do trading full time. Then do it the right way. Study the markets, the economic atmosphere of the world, the changing trends, the business performance of companies and invest/bet on the best options available. Do your own research instead of relying on illegal operators running WhatsApp groups.

Just take a step back and reevaluate whether you actually need all this money. Maybe you already have everything you need to be happy. Sometimes, in our race to chase the numbers we forget to think if we even needed it in the first place.

If I ever had the formula to make 10% return every trade. I would never share that with anyone. I wouldn't be running telegram channels. The secret to sucess is just that, ITS A SECRET.

Sorry buddy, get you head out of the pit and smell the crap.

[Bsimhan]

Originally Posted by tharian

This is a scam. I remember reading about it in the papers sometime back. Google it.
I were you, I would stop right now and get out of it.

Sound advice. I would also recommend closing down the bank accounts. In addition, please also close out the separate Demat Account that you created for this purpose. Many times, charges are levied on the demat account and you get to know about it after a lapse of time. Good luck.

Balaji

[Mr.Ogre]

WhatsApp has a feature that prevents unknown people from adding you to unknown WhatsApp groups. Ever since I enabled the feature my India number hasn't been added to any WhatsApp group.

However, before that I followed these steps immediately whenever an unknown person added me to a group:
1. Leaving the group,
2. Reporting it,
3. Sending expletives to the person adding me to the group,
4. And finally blocking the number.

I never believed in free lunches and anything that is too good to be true is a scam.

[saubi2299]

I am getting both kind of scam calls very frequently, courier to China/Taiwan and Number to be blocked by Telecom Department. In both, it always starts as IVR and asks to press some button to get more details. When I press some number, agent always asks for name. Every time I give a random name, and these idiots will then state that the a courier has been sent under that random name and my number. Whenever I am free, I act innocent and waste their 10-15 minutes asking how much cash was there in courier, please save me etc.

Basic lesson is to
1. Not tell your name.
2. Telecom Department or any other Govt Department do not have enough resources to call you and offer a complete resolution over phone. At max, you will get a call to come to police station if they have to ever question you.

[m8002?]

A couple of days back, I got a new variant of this. The imposter was posing as the CEO of my company. Looks like they go through LinkedIn profiles as well. Scary part is the phone number had CEO's name, photo etc. They also knew my name.

It started with me getting a message from a number claiming to be the CEO.
WA guy : Hey AAA ( my name ), This is XXX YYY ( CEO's name ). Please respond if you see this. Its urgent.

Me : Hello XXX, this is AAA. Please tell me.

WA guy : I need some urgent information related to India. I think you are the right person now. ( I head the India Product team and HQ offices were closed on that day ).

Me : Sure I can help you.

WA guy : I am in a critical call with India customer and wanted to gift them something. Want you to get 10 Amazon gift cards of 10K each. You can reimburse them later. Send the images of the card to this number.

(Knew it was a scam and forwarded the details to IT. ( They confirmed the number was not CEO's and his phone is not hacked ). Then I decided to play along.)

Me : Sure. I have informed the Purchase team and asked them to quickly do the needful ( we dont have a Purchasing team )

WA guy : Good...send it to me immediately.

(After 10 min )

WA guys : Still waiting. Send that across immediately.

Me : Just checked with Purchase team. They have just bought the cards

WA guy : send it immediately.

Me : They have sent the images to your official email. Please check

Nothing after that.

[xenon0025]

Originally Posted by m8002?

A couple of days back, I got a new variant of this. The imposter was posing as the CEO of my company. Looks like they go through LinkedIn profiles as well. Scary part is the phone number had CEO's name, photo etc. They also knew my name.

Ours is a small organisation ~300 employees so everyone knows the CEO and vice is also true in most cases. Some of the employees in our organisation have also received similar watsapp messages. Same modus operandi, they receive a watsapp message from a number which has our CEO's photo as display picture and message stating immediately reply once you see the message. Our IT team immediately sent out an email to all employees to be careful and not respond to such messages.

Worrying thing is the amount of data mining they do from LinkedIn. Photos, CEO and other senior level folks of the organisation and the employees of the organisation as well.

[Aviator_guy]

Newspaper is full of such stories but still people want to believe that they are chosen for something special and they can get rich overnight !

If it sounds too good to be true, it is !

[Victor-whiskey]

Originally Posted by Dippy

Just got this Fedex call with an automated voice telling me my parcel is stuck and asked me to press 1. I just cut the call.

The number for reference: +919916449888

I just realised that this method can be used to activate/ deactivate many services related to not only banks but almost everything as our phones are our connect point to everything.
A thorough professional fraudster with detailed info beforehand can create havoc.

[devilicious]

This happened to me as well but the only difference, I took all the details of the "scam" and decided to file a complaint in my local police station first (Delhi). I was told that since the origin of the parcel was in Mumbai, I would need to do this in Mumbai. But then I countered that police can tranfer cases and/or assist/work with police in different states themselves. And the call ended.

I did went to the police station who asked me to file a complaint with cyber cell which I then did online. Though it was a hassel, I knew my part is done and the police will do their job if they find this to be on their priority list. I recived the acknowledgement of the report I filed and thats it. Nothing after that.

It's been a year since then and it seems the fraud only grew in scale, that's why government took notice of it and we see a lot of reports in news or social media now.

The main point in any scam.. Always remain calm because even if the "alleged" threat is real, you know you've done nothing and be proactive in filling the FIR.

[ex-innova-guy]

Originally Posted by m8002?

A Looks like they go through LinkedIn profiles as well.

A LinkedIn profile can reveal a fair share of personal information. My friends have recently been getting internship/college offer letters, and they are posting them as they are without blurring their postal addresses which is mentioned in that letter. What a blunder! TBHP has surely taught me a thing or two about privacy because of blurring car number plates. :-)

[Prash1407]

Hello All,

Thanks all for your suggestions and responses.
Let me answer some of the questions.

1. I have opened the account in driehaus-c with a copy of Driving License
2. The Bank accounts are not owned by me. They are with Different names (some personal, some store etc); both Savings and Current
3. I am aware of the SBI account transactions since a close contact works for SBI
4. Regarding Penny Stocks, I am aware of this tactic. But, the trades being done in US are not Penny. Some of the stocks which got traded were: NVDA (NVIDIA Corp), VRTX (Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated), ISRG (Intuitive Surgical, Inc.), TSCO (Tractor Supply Co.), MNDY (Monday.com). The same with Indian stocks, all companies traded on NSE and stock price ranging from INR 200-1000
5. There are no documents related to this

@zenmaster: You have correctly read my mind. Your insight is really helpful

Thanks again for all your inputs