[that_sedate_guy]

WhatsApp is being used as the weapon of choice for many scams recently.
A few months ago, I was added to a group where there were three admins who were putting out messages that they would reward us with money each time we gave a review in Google maps. The first two reviews would fetch INR 50 and subsequent reviews would get more money. I was so busy laughing at this obvious scam and after a few minutes passed, I started reading the replies and to my horror, many people had already started posting fake reviews to places they had never been to and were getting money!
One guy then finished the first two attempts and then couldn't get money on the third try so he divulged his sensitive account info to one of those admins. I know of this because, seconds later, he was hurling abuses, cursing himself, his life and the admins because voila, his bank account was wiped clean! I was watching all this unfold in front of me! People were literally throwing away their hard earned money just because someone told them they could earn quick bucks!
I opened Truecaller and put in the numbers of those admins. (Love that app for these kinds of stuff btw)

Conversation with one of those admins
Me: Hey
Admin: Hi sir, like you seen in our group (God save my eyes and brain from that English), ek bhot badiya kaam hai sir (And I don't know much Hindi either) Are you interested in making lot of money quickly sir?
Me: Yes please tell me how!!! And can I please know your good name?
Admin: Sure sir. My name is Divya. (Proceeds to explain the scam process in hopes that I would fall for it)
Me: Nice! Which company are you working for and where are you from?
She?: I'm from New Delhi sir. We're contacting you from (some company name I forgot)
Me: Okay
She: Theek, abhi ye link click karo, fir you please give review here and you can collect your money sir. (And sent me a link)
Me: Okay, that's enough. Stop scamming like this. Aren't you ashamed of your pathetic existence? You're not even a girl called Divya, are you?
The moron: But sir my name is Divya Bora. I'm working in this company only sir. Please don't say such things before trying the link. You will definitely get money, sir!
THE NERVE!
Me: Alright, listen here you "chicken droppings" (I've used an euphemism here). Divya from New Delhi you say? Then who on earth is Sonu Singh from Bihar? Is your life that useless that you think you can text under a girl's name and I'll fall for your stupid scam?
He: *Abuses in Hindi which I didn't understand anyway*
Me: Whatever. Get a life, you sorry excuse for a human being
Blocked
Yep, I irritated the scamster into blocking me

But one other important and dark thing that came to light is that,
Google reviews cannot be trusted at all anymore. A hotel could serve people rotten food and you'd still end up there because you read thousands of five star reviews on Google. The entire system is messed up. Honest and good businesses may get one star ratings. Bad and downright dangerous places may get hundreds of great reviews. In the end, the consumers of the Google services suffer for placing their trust in such reviews without knowing they were typed by some uneducated moron who cared more about 50 rupees than about ruining someone's travel (maybe even life to some extent)
This needs to be looked into seriously.

Rant over. Sorry guys!

[NiInJa]

Thanks for penning your experience down! It takes courage. The cost of getting wise was 6.5lakh INR, but it could have been more

But again, how does one convince a person to believe they can get returns to the tune of 300% when it is practically impossible? This is beyond science. I have never got pulled into this particular scam, but I hope to get invited to one just to see how it functions first hand.

So far, my family and people in my circle have been attacked by following scamsters:

1. FedEx - illegal substance - narcotics department, police. My ex-colleague well into his 50s and a IT professional came close to emptying all his bank balance.

2. House rent advertisement on 99acres - fraud inquirer: A Man impersonating as army officer luring my dad into doing a Gpay transfer to do a 'deposit' in his bank account instead of transferring it into dad's. Too bad for the scamster, my dad and my mom don't have a UPI ID or even a debit card. All UPI related transactions happen through me and I immediately knew its a scam, but I and my wife played it out just to show my mom and dad how they do it!

3. Whatsapp group to write reviews and get money in return: Damn, that was so stupid, I could see that the group has bots!

4. LIC Insurance policy lapse, penalty, deposit immediately etc: Happened to a colleague back in 2019. We knew it was a fraud right from the first call, but we went along till the end as it was a lot of fun listening to other side. We actually booked a conference hall in our office back then and had the entire team listen to the drama It lasted for almost a week.

The hallmark of all above scams was that they will have most of the information about you handy and accurate, but there are give-aways like a shoddy url/website, bad grammar, using unprofessional language, fake symbols/logos etc.

We still haven't seen the next wave of scamsters and scams in India, where the website links provided look extremely close to the real ones, they even have fake https certificates which look authentic, SMSes coming from numbers that appear tagged to banks, even truecaller doesn't detect it. The employee information they share is real (like a photo of ID and a valid linkedin/social media profile). The calls sound genuine and extremely clean and professional and handled in a way that don't sound coercive in nature (unlike the FedEx scam, where they put lot of pressure on you to do certain things in a certain way). So far, such sophisticated ones are limited to fake 'NRI Grooms' and single people looking for relationships.

[Futhead]

Mods- I think this post deserves a separate thread because these needs to be openly discussed and awareness to be spread in as many open forums as it can be.

Myself fell prey to this kind of activity in Oct’23. Reported to cybercrime on toll free 1930 after realising that I’ve been framed, a FIR followed.Currently, case is being handed over from National cybercrime to local police authorities for investigation.Cyber frauds were not just limited to software professionals, many top tier company CEO’s, lawyers, doctors are being exposed to different kind of cyber frauds.

On daily basis we would also receive many messages from unknown numbers offering part time jobs and wealth creation etc.. Due to awareness one have, one would just ignore them but I urge you to report any such suspicious activity too. Cybercrime department has launched this new functionality to report suspicious activity on their portal to proactively prevent any cyber frauds.

Link: https://cybercrime.gov.in/Webform/cyber_suspect.aspx

We just need to provide minimal information on the portal like kind of message we received, channel( WhatsApp/telegram/mobile/email), a screenshot. Please Block/ report them on respective channels too. This would help cybercrime department to take corrective action before those fraudster attack the ones who doesn’t have awareness on cyber frauds.

[anilsurya1985]

Originally Posted by atulsian

Sorry for your loss @spr1ngleo. I was reading this thread and other thread re scams and I wonder why every person working in IT ( no offense to the OP or any other IT professional) presume that they know everything about internet ( dark and white) and if they fall in a trap like OP, anyone else can also fall. The most know-how person of the dark side of internet also falls in trap.
All these telephone scams are social engineering methods. Only a part of hacking.


I apologise if anyone is offended by my post. Mods please delete if you deemed it to be unnecessary.

It is not that IT Professionals presume to know everything, but scamsters are finding intelligent ways to hack into your network and try to rob money from people. They will have a lot of minute details about you which at some point will make you believe that the person on the other side is genuine and fell into the trap.

I was once called by one scamster and told that my reward points of 7K are going to expire, you don't believe at that time I had exactly 7K worth of reward points in my account. It might be a random guess by scamster we don't know but at that point, we might panic and fall into the scamster's trap.

[Lord-Lannister]

Don't feel bad OP, but let this be a lesson to learn forever into the future. I would highly advise you to further protect / change your banking info, numbers and email, any which they already possess as I have heard there is a separate list of more sophisticated attacks to the ones already affected.

The scam calls and frauds these days are relentless, so much so that I have quite literally opted for iPhone's option to silence unknown callers to which I only check through true caller and then callback only if I know I am expecting someone who may have called.

I also am of belief that the banks or someone within are the source of leaks. My parents, both senior citizens were targeted by due to their age and more or so with the eye on large funds in the bank i.e their retirement savings. Fortunately, I was able to educate them on such instances and now have firmly kept my own email address to keep an eye on the bank transactions via IB to be a filter.

With a high likelihood of these fraudsters being in cahoots with the local cops and politicians to even judges, us Indians are the new Nigerian Prince of scammers with no end in sight to the humiliation.

[ganeshk4]

Thankfully, till now I have ignored these kind of groups even after being added 4-5 groups. Now I understand purpose of these groups. Thanks for you to opening up, but it already felt shady to me. Recently I was added to a "Wealth exchange group", and here are some excerpts from the group.

"Welcome to our new members. This is Capula Investment Management LLP, the fourth largest hedge fund in Europe. We are dedicated to expanding into the Indian market and serving the high-net-worth individuals in India. Please note that we only provide services related to stocks and do not offer any other financial services. If you have any questions regarding stocks, feel free to add*me*on*WhatsApp.

Welcome new friends to join this group, all the services provided by this group are free of charge, in this group you can enjoy: 1. free to help you analyse the stocks in your hand you can get professional advice, 2. every night at 8:00 Mr. Rohit Singh has a course to explain you can learn stock market skills free of charge, 3. weekly recommendation of the strongest stocks you can receive free of charge! Here I am proudly requesting you all to join us, please add my WhatsAPP friend , I will let you know the*information!

For those who haven't added me yet, please add my WhatsApp in time, I will recommend you excellent build stocks in time from my side, which are expected to go up by more than 20%, and later on, I will also provide you a stock market package worth Rs. 10 lakhs! You can add my whatsAPP if you need to collect it: i will let you*know*the*info!"

I would advise to stay away from any such groups.

[ex-innova-guy]

Here is a tip for members getting added to these spam WhatsApp groups:

WhatsApp Settings -> Privacy -> Groups -> My Contacts (whichever option you prefer)

If a person is unable to add you to a group, he/she can send you a private message with the WhatsApp group link.

[KL01toKA03]

I would classify these scams into one of the following categories:

1. Preying on the fear of the potential victims: This includes the Fedex scams and blackmail scams

2. Preying on the greed of the potential victims: This includes various investment scams

3. Preying on insecurities of potential victims:


Much has been said about the first two types. I have experience with the third type.

During a time when I was going through a difficult time with my in-laws, a friend of my wife introduced her to an astrologer who suggested doing some poojas (she had to send the money, while the scamster would do the pooja and inform her). Time heals all wounds, and gradually I patched up all issues with my in-laws. During the course of 1 year, the scamster made my wife transfer 4.25 lakhs. During the same time, we had purchased a house which took some significant investment, and my wife was laid off from her job, which put us under immense financial stress. While we were trying to find out how to make ends meet, my wife was paying someone who would do "magic" to make things right. I am not a person who checks my wife's accounts, but when she shared the statements for some other reason, I found these transactions. I was not happy, but not angry at her. She now realizes what had happened, and has stopped making those payments.


A person who I met while carpooling told me that he had a son who is autistic. He joined several Whatsapp groups for families with autistic children. From those groups, people would contact him offering miracle cures including medicine and "prayers". He lost a lot of money before realizing that there are no shortcuts in life.

[speedmiester]

A new way to scam people.

https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.c.../109671804.cms

[Aish_4761]

I have 2 instances to share, where I was saved by a whisker!

1. It is the fall of 2015, a freshie, searching for job relentlessly, after dropping off an offer from my college placements(story for some other day), I get a call from a so called HR head of General Motors, going by a false name Poonam Yekad, stating that my profile has been shortlisted from xyz Job portal and that she will interview me later in the day. All this in such a pathetic English, I could barely understand, must mention!
As usual, I clear the interview and am then asked to deposite INR 5k in an account so that they can process my candidature!
I skeptically told this to my mom and we went to the same bank's local branch to get transaction details on this account, the branch manager was very cooperative told us this account has plenty of such small transactions and as soon as an amount is deposited, it is transferred to another account, leaving this account almost empty; read no scope to reverse transactions!
Needless to say, we didn't deposite, she kept on calling, in the evening, my dad had enough, simply said, madam the next time you call, we are reporting it to the police!

2. I was working in Pune, however, owing to COVID, I shifted to my hometown. I get a call from someone with a similar surname as mine, urging me to convert my credit card reward points to INR as there were many, and that day was the last to perform this conversion. I had gotten a message from the back a few months back about my reward points but, they were miniscule as opposed to what this guy said!
As we proceeded with the call, they asked me for my cc number, I said since you are calling from the bank, you should have it, to which they replied that it is for verifying if I am the actual owner. I gave them the number with a slight catch, the last 4 digits were changed. Then I asked if it matches their records, they affirmed, my suspection turned concrete. How did I end up to this stage? They had my DoB, they had my Pune address, they had my organization address, my designation and a lot of other sensitive info, which tricked me to believe for the time, that they were legit!

This was very hard for me to digest, I filed a complaint to the bank and blamed them for a data breach, a lot of my sensitive info was with the scanners already, how come?

In continuation, later on the same call a lot of drama unfolded, a lady from the so called security dept. was involved and in her frustration, she started shouting! I could hear her teammates cussing her lol!

I blocked my cc permanently.

We have to be very very vigilant nowadays!

[Fuldagap]

Originally Posted by that_sedate_guy

But one other important and dark thing that came to light is that,
Google reviews cannot be trusted at all anymore.

While I agree that Google reviews can't be trusted blindly, these scammers use Google reviews or youtube likes or any other means as a ploy to get their victims do something ordinary to make quick bucks. They even deposot monies initially in their victims' accounts to win them over. Then they level up and make big bucks subsequently.

Where they really win is playing with the temptation of the victims to make quick bucks with no real efforts required. Some people have lost crores engaging in games like these which start with youtube likes, google reviews etc.

[Arsenic]

I got a particularly unique scam message the other day.

Firstly, I have NO CLUE how the scammers got hold of my number - I’m very particular when it comes to denying merchants that want my number as it (usually) isn’t required.

Anyways - the scammers send me a WhatsApp message. It comes from an account with a clipart () of a lightbulb. They send me an attachment titled ‘electricity bill’, with the assumption that I will open it. The scammers aren’t even trying - they’ve not tried to impersonate my actual power company, so clearly they aren’t particularly bright.

Hell, they’re even less bright than I thought because I DON’T PAY AN ELECTRICITY BILL!

The attachment was an executable file (.apk) - but the brilliant scammers didn’t know that my phone is an iOS device that cannot open APKs! My assumption is that they were trying to install malware - but once again, they royally failed.

That being said - if I was less technically inclined, did not have as much common sense and was on an Android device, I may have actually fallen for the scam out of sheer curiosity to open the file.

[Su-47]

Originally Posted by Arsenic

The attachment was an executable file (.apk) - but the brilliant scammers didn’t know that my phone is an iOS device that cannot open APKs! My assumption is that they were trying to install malware - but once again, they royally failed.

That being said - if I was less technically inclined, did not have as much common sense and was on an Android device, I may have actually fallen for the scam out of sheer curiosity to open the file.

Question for the technically savvy ones - Doesn't installing an app outside of the play store require changing the default security settings on Android? Some thing like enabling "install untrusted/unknown apps"?

In other words, if one is careful to not mess up with the default security settings, merely clicking on an apk shouldn't cause trouble. Right?

Thanks!

[amol4184]

Very similar to OP, I had a bunch of "investment" money doubling opportunity messages on WhatsApp by random numbers immediately after a large-ish sum had been deposited to my account.
It could be co-incidental, it could be intentional but after reading OP's account I am leaning towards it being intentional. How exactly do they know the money movement in private accounts? This is truly scary.

[ashkamath]

Well, Let me narrate my story here. I had a couple of ICICI Prudential insurance policies taken more than a decade ago and I had paid the premium for a few years and then just forgotten about it. I had just written them off and let it go.

On 23rd, July 2020 in the middle of Covid, I get a call from one Mr. Sunil who introduces himself as the manager of ICICIPru at Bangalore and provided me my insurance policy details and informed me that I could withdraw the amount. I logged into the legitimate ICICIpru portal and using the policy numbers was able to extract the details of both my lapsed policies. One was maturing next year in 2021 and the other in 2023 and both had some decent amount as final maturity amount (which was true as it was the legitimate portal).

Mr. Sunil said that I could withdraw the amount before the maturity and emailed me a form to me to fill up. The form went like this..

<Start - Form>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co Ltd

Subject: Surrender/Partial withdrawal, transfer of Funds & third party authority letter

Dear Sir/Madam

Request you to kindly process full Surrender/Partial withdrawal for my policy no…………………………..
I give my consent to transfer the funds Rs …………………………….. for (Issuance of New Policy/ Renewal/ Topup) into Application/Policy # ……………………..

Partial withdrawal details
Fund Name Partial Withdrawal Amount or Percentage

Please refund balance amount in below mentioned account -

Account No ……………………………………………………………..
Bank Name: ………………………………………………………………
IFSC Code:………………………………………………………………….

I hereby authorize Mr.________________________________to submit my surrender/partial withdrawal & transfer of fund request to you for processing.
Enclosed :
1. Policy Document
2. PAN or Passport Copy as ID Proof
3. Cancelled Cheque Copy/ Bank Statement Copy

I hereby declare that information shared is true and correct.

Proposer Name : ……………………………………….
Email: …………………………………….
Contact No. ………………………………..

Signature of Proposer

Place :
Date :
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<End - Form>

Sunil spoke impeccable english and very good Kannada. We started conversing in Kannada and he came out to be a very nice and understanding person. very patient and agreeing to my view point as I opened up about some aspect of my life with him as he came out to be a genuinely nice guy. I filled up the above form and sent him. Then he said I will receive an OTP on my mobile to confirm my policy and I did receive an OTP which I gave it to him on mobile. So he had the OTP with him now.

Later on, same day (23rd July 2020) he emailed me with the following request.

<Start - Email message>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear sir,

As per our discussion yesterday , this is to just brief about the details of the plan , we will be moving rs 1 lakh from the existing life time pension ii (017132280) to icici prudential signature plan which comes with reduced fund management charges and AAA fund with auto switching and ROTPAC and wealth booster bonus enabled, and we can liquidate this plan by completion of 5th policy year as a tax free returns.

The required documents from your end.

1 pan card (self attested)
2. Aadhar card copy
3. 1 cancelled cheque leaf (containing your name on it)
4. 1 ppt size photograph ( soft copy will be accepted).

You can share all the details to the same mail id.

Regards
Sunil.R
Deputy manager
ICICI PRU LIFE
8197360960
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<End - Email message>

Upon receiving the above request by email, I sent him the information sought. I sent him an attachment of a self attested pan card, a copy of my Aadhaar, a cancelled cheque lead and a photograph.

Trust me guys, I never ever doubted him even a moment.

On Sunday, 26th July 2020 he sent me another email as follows.

<Start - Email message>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear sir,

As per the discussion there is a requirement of payment for the existing lifetime super pension numbered(01713280) since it is in a regular pay option there is a due of rs,1,17,300rs , where in which it will be refunded as soon as the surrender of the policy with certain deduction of rs approx 2000 rs *, and there is a current fund of rs 1,09,843rs in the same policy as on 24th july 2020(subject to fluctuation and taxes if applicable), after the transfer of fund of rs 1 lakh to the application OS14388322 , there will be a remaining balance of total due paid(1,17,300rs) and the remaining fund value of( 9,843) from the existing fund value (subject to fluctuation and taxes if applicable) will be transferred to your savings bank account provided.

i am sharing the screen shot of the remaining due for the policy.



Regards
Sunil.R

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<End - Email message>

After sending this above email he called me and asked me to deposit Rs. 1, 17,300 as my pending amount as the policy has lapsed and it has to be made upto date.

Now, I smelled some rat. Look at the above email. A professional would never write "Rs" as "rs" (and mention rs on both side of the amount )and no proper punctuations or paragraphs and no professional would say "I" as "i". As a qualified engineer and professional Marine Surveyor myself, these were some red flags to me, though I agree I was a complete idiot in the first place to fall for the sweet words of Mr. Sunil. I realised that the image that was sent was a purely doctored image and not genuine as I couldn't locate the same page when I logged into the genuine ICICI portal myself.

I wasn't willing to pay any money as initially he had told me that you will get what ever the amount was in the policy and the policy will be closed. And now here he was asking me to deposit a Lakh so that I can get some maturity benefit or something. I had let this policy go and the amount pass and wasn't interested in pursuing it any further. So, I put my foot down and said that I am not interested in depositing any money (actually had I deposited the money, it would have gone into his account) and I also told him that I am willing to let go of the policy money and I am not interested in it. Well, he sweet talked again in kannada with the most pursuasive manner I have ever come across and tried to lure me into making the deposit. I simply said no more money from my side for this insurance thing and let's forget it. He tried calling me a couple of times later and I simply ignored him.

Thereafter I went to the ICICI insurance company branch at Madgao and spoke with the Manager there personally and he informed me that I can withdraw the amount( a decent chunk) with some benefits next year, 2021. I physically went to their branch and got it transferred to my account and then in 2023 ( last year) the second lapsed policy matured and again I went physically to their branch office, sat with the manager and finished some formalities and got the amount transferred to my account. Both amounts that I received were 6 figure amounts and substantial.

The incidence shook me up from my slumber and I became extra vigilant thereafter. Till date I don't know what that OTP was for and how he benefitted from that OTP that I received on my mobile. If anyone has any idea, please educate me about that OTP and how it could have helped the scamster.

I stopped receiving any random number on my mobile. I would later check the number on true caller and if it's marked as SPAM, I would block it and delete it. If It's a genuine business number, I would wait for them to call again and take it further. As I live in Goa and my mother tongue is Konkani, I speak in Konkani on phone and if it's a fraudster, the reply will be in Hindi or English and never Konkani as my clients are all Goan.

I never click on any attachment on email or even whatsapp. Even if a friend sends me a whatsapp attachment, I would call him up and ask him about it. It so happened that a friend's facebook was hacked and he sent me a message and a link to join his new facebook page. I just ignored such links and messages as I am not on facebook.

I must have blocked a thousand or more numbers now. I patiently do that and the frequency of spam calls have reduced. And by mistake if I pick up a spam call I simply tell that I am driving in the traffic and there are cops around and I can't speak and hang up and block them. That's my standard reply.

Anyways, be careful guys. Never give out any info on social media, lesser the better, monitor your kids activities on SM, keep an eye open on the mobile, the whatsapp thing, unsolicited messages.( I get whatsapp messages like - Hi, How are you?) I just delete and move on. Different PIN for different apps and things like that. So far so good. Hope to stay safe going forward.

Note: I have purposefully left the mobile number of Mr. Sunil (I am not sure if it's his real name) unmasked, so that members here can make a note of it and be aware of the fraudster's contact number.