[Amrik Singh]

I have joint account with my Wife in SBI. It is a small branch in my neighbourhood. Although it had good strength of employees at one time, it is reduced to just three females, besides helps.
I got a call on my wife's phone, purportedly from this bank . Surprisingly, it is a male voice reminding me that my KYC details are to be updated. I asked him and he confirmed that he was speaking from the Bank. Red Flag as the branch is managed by all female staff.
Else, he would block my Online App. I asked him to connect me to a fictitious name.
"Who is he ?" he wanted to know.
"Your branch manager, who personally knows me" I clarified.
"He is on leave today" he answered.
Enough is enough. The conversation that followed was one sided, best of Punjabi profanities from me to him.
Later I checked a SMS asking me to click on a website. I did not do that but made a dash to bank to report and check my account to be safe.
Surprisingly, same call came two weeks later again. This time I told him that I have already cleared and closed this account.
"Sir but there is 3 Lakh rupees in the account. What about that?"
I never held that much amount in my account.
"So much money in closed account? Keep it and enjoy" I replied followed by my Punjabi instinct and cuss words.

[condor]

A friend got a sms stating his SBI account KYC was not done, and it gave a number to be called. My friend by mistake called the number, but luckily the number came as invalid, in Gujrati. Bangalore to Gujrat ? fishy ! He realised the mistake as soon as he got the 'invalid' message.

One of the things is that the sms had bad english - "K,Y,C" and "..will be block" - these were the give-aways.

[BenjiRoss]

Does the DND registry even work in India. After several ICICI calls I complained via Twitter and they responded unfavorably with non specific responses and even used my complaint to dig out my account details (I didn't share any details).
Today I received this sms which is probably illegal. What can I do to block them further. About 2 to 3 calls a day from different numbers.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

Does the DND registry even work in India. After several ICICI]

The header seems to be legitimate.
I have one suggestion for everyone receiving SMS spam. Report it through the DND app. You nasty think it's nothing, but it makes and service providers' life very difficult. They have to speak with the client, get proof of Opt in, and provide it to the operators, else there are hefty fines. Always report the messages.

[BenjiRoss]

Originally Posted by mayankk

The header seems to be legitimate.
I have one suggestion for everyone receiving SMS spam. Report it through the DND app. You nasty think it's nothing, but it makes and service providers' life very difficult. They have to speak with the client, get proof of Opt in, and provide it to the operators, else there are hefty fines. Always report the messages.

Which is the official DND app. On Playstore, so many show up and I none of them seem official

[jkrishnakj]

Originally Posted by mayankk

The header seems to be legitimate.
I have one suggestion for everyone receiving SMS spam. Report it through the DND app. You nasty think it's nothing, but it makes and service providers' life very difficult. They have to speak with the client, get proof of Opt in, and provide it to the operators, else there are hefty fines. Always report the messages.

Fully agree.

My TRAI DnD app is very helpful. I’ve managed to get a lot of 25K fine for people selling STAR health/personal/car loans/Rado watches and what not. The maximum number fines I’ve managed to gift back are for those auto voice calls that seem to come from Ghaziabad/Meerut etc.

I diligently report every spam call/sms. Airtel has to open a ticket, follow up and close loop back with me on actions taken. It works. And each time I see a confirmation of a fine, it makes me happy.

Benjiross : I use the TRAI app. It’s the one with a white square with a purple TRAI logo in a circle, with a ‘phone’ icon inside.

[binand]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

Which is the official DND app. On Playstore, so many show up and I none of them seem official

On Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...rai.gov.in.dnd

On App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/trai-d...b/id1443781196

Note that these apps don't provide any significant value-add. All they do is to send the offending SMS message (the one you choose to report) via SMS to the special number 1909. Messages to this number is received and processed by the operator (not TRAI!) as per the published DND guidelines.

You can do the same thing yourself (forward your spam to 1909). It is a free service.

On the downside, the DND app (a government app) needs full access to your IMEI, contacts, call logs, messages etc. and a few other intrusive permissions. Remember Apple originally refused to provide this sort of access and GoI had to arm twist them a bit.

Lastly - if you know you are on DND and still are getting a lot of SMS, verify your DND status. In my experience, it gets reset every time you do something that requires a new CAF. These activities include:

1. Getting a new SIM (I think this includes conversion from physical to eSIM and vice versa too).
2. Conversion from prepaid to postpaid and vice versa.
3. Change of circle, same operator (perhaps irrelevant for Jio)
4. Change of billing address (Not sure. Confirm?)
5. MNP.

So every time you do any of these, best to re-register on the DND - which is quite simple, really. Just send an SMS with the text "START 0" to 1909.

After that, use an SMS client that has spam detection and blocking capabilities. The Microsoft SMS client has a blocklist, and I believe the Google default one is now capable of text analysis and spam detection.

[Thilak29]

I got a call from someone claiming to be BSNL KYC and I happily prolonged the conversation. My number is not currently in the BSNL network but it was so when I bought the SIM some ten plus years ago.

The caller advised me that my KYC has elapsed and I should install some app from the Google play store, I expressed my inability to search for the app on my Windows Phone.
The caller got a bit irritated and suggested I put the sim in an Android phone, I told him I have none, the call got disconnected. I opened up truecaller and tried to understand caller details, turned out the call came from WB and I returned the call, heard a busy announcement in Bengali which substantiated my finding in truecaller. After some two hours, he called back and asked if I was trying to reach him, I said yes of course! I badly need some help with this SIM situation since it is just about to go offline. Then I told him that I am based in Kolkata and it would be nice of him if he can visit me at the office to help out personally.

He gleamingly(of course my imagination!) said yes! I gave him one of the ACP office addresses (thanks to Google) and told him to meet me there to take matters forward. He said 'no sir' and a long silence before the call getting disconnected.

Now it seems like my number got blocked at his end as calls fail to connect. I had few minutes of fun. Later I promptly updated truecaller details suggesting spam threat.

[BRV]

Recently, am receiving lot of spam calls like personal loans, ODs, save some child donations though my number is registered for DND (not applied for loans/ cards/didn't visited malls to share the number to sales rep)

To top it receiving normal messages and WhatsApp messages now from international numbers (+1 334 490 xxxx)



Truecaller is a savior, still these spammers use new numbers which are not there in Truecaller database. Wondering if the spammers are checking their numbers in Truecaller and changing them frequently (Airtel, Jio, etc., are happy that they are getting new subscribers)

[NPV]

Wanted to share this great news that I'm going to become richer by 3.5 Crore Rupees very soon, will get the money from the OPEC Fund, no less

After a very long time since I registered for DND and have blocked several numbers (as and when I received spam calls & SMS messages), I received this SMS message today:

[crashnburn_in]

So I started getting some calls from so called.

Axis Bank Credit Card division with new Offers ( I had got one just 6 months ago via Priority Banking).

Said bunch of stuff and I said cant remember all this stuff via Phone anyways so I'll wait for the MAILED material to come in and you can call me then or I can call you.

He insists I have to listen or he will cancel my current credit card!

ROFL!

What's scary is they seem to have gotten hands on Customer Lists and details from inside?

Because I used to get "cross selling" calls from the local branch and I saved / blocked and told them that we have a personal priority banking manager at the branch. So, for anything, we will first talk to him. Please do not call us to pitch stuff.

[Oxy]

There's something very scary that my wife just went through.

We are awaiting a courier that was dispatched through DTDC. My wife googled their customer care number in order to ask them where the package is, as in their website on searching with the tracking number, it showed it's somewhere near our area.

We were told by this executive to download an app called Anydesk from the playstore and link our phone to it so that the location can be tracked. Now this is an app which allows remote sharing of your mobile phone screen to the other party, including allowing control etc like we have in the desktop meeting apps.

The guy then asks us to give control for making a small payment, and this is when it clicked to her that's this is unusual. Immediately disconnected and uninstalled the app.

I then insisted her on calling the number again, someone else picks up and sure enough, asks us to install the app. Again disconnected promptly.

She didn't login to her banking app during the call but did install the Anydesk app. Her phone number and address might have been linked to this shady app.

A Google search then revealed this:

https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshow...picid=80037087

Should I be worried? I am not sure. But guys, please be extremely careful. The scary thing is that this is not some shady call we received, but this happened when we googled the courier company number and called them ourselves for assistance.

[JithinR]

Originally Posted by Oxy

Should I be worried? I am not sure. But guys, please be extremely careful. The scary thing is that this is not some shady call we received, but this happened when we googled the courier company number and called them ourselves for assistance.

I have got tired of warning my mom and dad about this scam (this is not something new). People tend to Google stuff and then tend to take the search results for gospel.

You just need to ensure that going forward you get all contact details from the company website (for example, if I need to call ICICI customer care then I always go the ICICI website, confirm that I am on the right website using the Certificate and then visit the Contact Us page to get the number).

P.S During the initial days my Dad always used to respond to my sermons with, "You are being paranoid, what would someone gain by posting fake information on Google?". This was after I had delivered a long lecture when I caught him using Google to get the Canara bank branch number.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Oxy

There's something very scary that my wife just went through.

We are awaiting a courier that was dispatched through DTDC. My wife googled their customer care number in order to ask them where the package is, as in their website on searching with the tracking number, it showed it's somewhere near our area.

..... this happened when we googled the courier company number and called them ourselves for assistance.

This is another common modus operandi followed by the scammers and this was reported by the media also sometime back. The scammers basically edit Google Maps details of local bank branches, courier companies, insurance co branches etc, and when you think you are calling a local bank branch the call actually goes to the scammer. Unfortunately, many people are falling for this. Google also acknowledged this problematic feature in Google Maps but haven't removed or disabled this feature.

[KrisTvpm]

Received these 2 SMS during last 1 month.



Apart from the ones from nigerian prince, winnie mandela in distress, BMW lottery etc., this is pretty much 1st time I'm getting a fake SMS claiming to be from an Indian bank.

Didn't bother to call the bank to check if my a/c survived, as I knew this is an obvious phishing/smishing attempt.

A quick truecaller search revealed both numbers are from Bengal.