[dailydriver]

This landed up in my mail yesterday.



What is the scammer trying to do here? Is he hoping that I would call the number given there and share my account details upon his sweet talking?

Originally Posted by saisree

He is asking you to call if ever you need assistance

Not free, the transaction is supposed to cost $450. It will entitle me to a tiny fraction (0.025) of a bitcoin .

The mail was sent from the following address.

[saisree]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

What is the scammer trying to do here? Is he hoping that I would call the number given there and share my account details upon his sweet talking?

He is asking you to call if ever you need assistance.
By the way congrats on a free bitcoin. As per our FM you may need to pay Tax

[harshaguduru]

This just happened to a good friend of mine.

They got a call saying, we are from FedEx and one of your parcels is stuck in Mumbai customs.

In a span of few minutes, they kept transferring and escalating the calls to constable--> inspector and slowly escalated it from just a stuck parcel to a contraband of drugs/credit cards etc and slowly tried to pull details such as aadhar card etc.

Finally in a way to alleviate the issue they asked for 49,998 Rs as bribe/fees to solve the issue.

Being doubtful by this time my friend told them that we will visit the police station in Hyderabad and have our lawyer look into it and then the tone turned menacing with more vague threats etc.

Fortunately my friend refused to pay and told them they will pay later.

All these calls originated from a virtual call centre number and later WhatsApp. they even shared an obviously edited id card of some inspector of Mumbai police

Wanting to look into this further, I called the mobile number of that WhatsApp and a farmer from Telangana picked up saying he doesn't have WhatsApp and has received multiple such calls today. Advised to report misuse of his phone at a nearby station

Then I reached out to them on WhatsApp and told them that I am calling from a police station in Hyderabad and was promptly blocked

This is just for info and please watch out for such scams.

Its a fairly sophisticated system including and IVR to select and transfer calls.

Some Takeaways:
Never Share any OTP's
Never Share aadhar Details.
Best to say that you're related to a cop and that your uncle/aunt will handle it.

Regards
HG

[UMe]

Got this sms on my mobile. The sms doesnt seem genuine nor it seems from the bescom office.

Looks like some kind of new fraud in town. Watchout!

[binand]

Originally Posted by UMe

The sms doesnt seem genuine nor it seems from the bescom office. Looks like some kind of new fraud in town.

This has been going on for a while.

https://indianexpress.com/article/ci...yment-7959143/

[bigben]

This is the first time something like this has happened to me. I am extremely careful of fraudsters and take extra precaution to ensure that my address is destroyed on all my online shopping parcels, when disposing of the packing. I also watched the Netflix series, “Jamtara” and am aware of the modus operandi of these crooks.
Anyway, since I watch a lot of YouTube videos, some of them provide free giveaways in their videos if viewers leave comments in the comments field about the video. For one such video I had done just that and I mentioned a few things about the video. Post commenting, I lost track of the video and the comment. A few days ago, I noticed a notification on the bell icon that YouTube has, and when I clicked on it, I noticed that the comment I had made was shortlisted for the giveaway. While I was excited something at the back of my mind said- be careful, you never know. But the thought of wining an iPhone overpowered the other doubts that I had and I reached out them over Telegram, as instructed in the comment that they had left. I was really excited as this was the first time, I had ever won a giveaway. When I reached out to them, they congratulated me on winning. Then they asked me for my mailing address, which I provided. The second red flag was raised when I noticed grammatical errors that I being made in their communication with me, which you would not expect from someone from Canada. Then they asked me to pay postage fees for the product to be shipped from Canada to India. I checked their account and everything seemed to be authentic. However, when I was being pressurized to make the payment, that’s when I realized that something was wrong. I told them that I wasn’t interested and to go ahead and give the product to someone else. They agreed and then later in the day when I checked, I noticed that the YouTube account and Telegram profile had changed and was totally wiped out. Luckily, I didn’t fall for this or else I would have ended up losing about 6 -7 k in the process.

[500ContyCruiser]

Originally Posted by UMe

Got this sms on my mobile. The sms doesnt seem genuine nor it seems from the bescom office.

Looks like some kind of new fraud in town. Watchout!

Originally Posted by binand

This has been going on for a while.

https://indianexpress.com/article/ci...yment-7959143/

I too got similar sms.

That day I was sitting at home jobless and was bed ridden due to very bad neck catch. I kept calling them non-stop. Maybe 40-50 times from regular call or WA. Until they finally blocked my number
Even got connected to a guy who was talking in Bengali. Asked him to talk in Kannada as I don't know Hindi or Bengali. He disconnected.


Later called up BESCOM. They confirmed multiple people are getting such scam sms/calls. Nothing initiated by them and we can ignore such notifications.

[binand]

The electricity bill scam is getting so popular that banks are sending special notifications to deal with it?

[Pancham]

Guys, not sure if this qualifies as a scam/fraud call or not but for the past 2-3 months, I have been receiving phone calls from different numbers asking for one "Gau... Shing../Shi..". I keep telling the caller/s that it's a wrong number (I AM NOT GA.. S...) but they dont seem to believe me and keep hurling abuses from the other side. Every time I block the number, they call from a different number asking me why I blocked them. They even send me WhatsApp messages. The caller/s seems to be speaking in Marathi (I think).

Overall, it is extremely disturbing as you keep getting calls and the caller/s are usually very aggressive in their tone (which includes different kinds of abuses as well).

What should I do in this case? Is there a cyber cell or anything where I can submit these numbers and lodge a complain? Any help will be appreciated.

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by Pancham

Guys, not sure if this qualifies as a scam/fraud call or not but for the past 2-3 months, I have been receiving phone calls from different numbers

How old is your number? If you have recently got this, probably this was allocated to this other person prior to you and he might have used it to do some unlawful activity like taking some loan and not repaying. Hence the calls.

Not sure how to handle the such a situation.

[Pancham]

Originally Posted by shipnil

How old is your number? If you have recently got this, probably this was allocated to this other person prior to you and he might have used it to do some unlawful activity like taking some loan and not repaying. Hence the calls.

Not sure how to handle the such a situation.

I got this number in 2007. Now I am getting WhatsApp calls and messages again.

[deathwalkr]

Keep blocking. They should run out of numbers to call you from soon enough.

Not an ideal solution but it should work.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Pancham

for the past 2-3 months, I have been receiving phone calls from different numbers asking for one "Gau... Shing../Shi..". I keep telling the caller/s that it's a wrong number (I AM NOT GA.. S...) but they dont seem to believe me and keep hurling abuses from the other side.

I guess this G.S. ran some sort of scam and gave your number to the scammees. You'll have to wait it out I suppose.

[binand]

A heads-up on a scam being executed over WhatsApp.

I got this message out of the blue today:



The PDF file (core of the scam) is also attached to this post. Be aware that acting on the information within (including calling the mentioned number) is at your own risk. It is a risible attempt at a scam:

1. The barcode is: "0137234567000128" which is more or less certain to be a pseudo-randomly generated number (234567 in sequence? Bah).
2. The seal says "Government of India - Estd 1989".
3. The names are Rahul Sharma (which is perhaps India's equivalent of John Smith) and Dev Anan(d) who is doing what, customer support for GoI?
4. TRAI finds a mention, so does the ministry of "Communication".
5. There's more, not enumerating everything.

I have reported my copy to WhatsApp and blocked the inbound number.

Here's Rahul Sharma's Truecaller entry. They have gone to some lengths to make this scam believable. Two giveaways though - the @rediff.com email, and the fact that the number is Jio's.

[TheGearBox]

Dealers are selling your contact details!

Ever since I bought a new car last month, I've been receiving calls from XYZ Holidays asking me to attend a presentation on their "attractive membership plans", along with a "free dinner."
When I ask them where they got my number from, they say that I had "once done a Google search on their company." I tell them that could not give them my number, to which they reply that they have a tie-up with Google and can access all their users' contact information. Really!?

I blocked the number from which I got the first such call, but they keep calling from a different number every time!

My manager who also bought the same model from the same dealership has also been receiving calls from them since the time of his purchase. That cannot be a coincidence.
By the way, he actually did attend one of their presentations yesterday. He had no intention of getting a membership, he just went for the heck of that free dinner.
Turned out that there was no dinner, just some dumb lecture on membership plans (starting at Rs 5 lakh for 10 years).