[deathwalkr]

Have you guys got calls from a supposed NGO asking for money for kid at deathbed at some hospital?

The person calling will be frantic and would be speaking in a very distressed voice as if the world is going to end. Got the details of the supposed kid once and called up the hospital in which he was apparently admitted in. Turns out no such patient and no such cases.

[Oxy]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

Have you guys got calls from a supposed NGO asking for money for kid at deathbed at some hospital?

The person calling will be frantic and would be speaking in a very distressed voice as if the world is going to end. Got the details of the supposed kid once and called up the hospital in which he was apparently admitted in. Turns out no such patient and no such cases.

The moment I hear NGO on my phone, I tell them I am a student and hence cannot donate anything.

Once a lady at the other end had the cheek to tell me that my voice sounds like that of a professional and not of a student. I gave her a nice little smashing and disconnected the call.

[centaur]

Unfortunately the ladies in the house generally fall for the "Kid needs money for treatment" scam and they fall so bad that they actually go ahead with the process. I got a call like this once and I bluntly told them that I will not pay a penny since I cant verify. If its someone in my city who needs help, I will visit the patient in the hospital myself, talk tot he doctors, and then pay what I feel like else not a penny.

Wifey got such a call and she was almost in tears asking me what to do. I told her the same what I had been doing. The scamster had got a wind of her being emotional and actually creating a picture of the sick kid and she ended up calling up and pestering my wife many times. Finally asked my wife to do the same that I do.

Also I have noticed that such calls generally increase when on roaming which makes me believe that telecom operators are hand in gloves with these idiots. Also TRAI putting a ban and my number being registered in the DO NOT DISTURB registry seems to be making no difference at all.

These days, thanks to truecaller, half of these scam calls get blocked automatically and the remaining get blocked by me once the name gets displayed on the screen. A very handy app and kudos to the developers for creating it. Life has been more easier now.

[im_srini]

This was forwarded as a joke at work ( because of you know what ), wasn't amusing though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKhD7pF59WE

Apparently, this is big business, a casual search turned up tons of such videos !

Was shocked by how many people had been scammed & by how much !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXUvN-ijm7c

[sukhoi30]

Over the past couple of years I have been contacted by many NGOs claiming to be representing poor folks who require immediate funds for various medical treatments. For the very first time I got swayed and did make a small donation. Then I read some reviews that that NGO was fraud and were fleecing people. Thereafter they started calling me to help for other cases too. It was never ending and every time I was left with a guilt as I had to decline politely. Finally I blocked all the numbers that they used to call from.

I tried to research this NGO and online everything appeared fine and genuine. In fact they have masked the webpage in such a way that any person visiting it will definitely be convinced that everything written there is genuine.

Recently I started getting calls from another NGO Child Care Foundation with similar requests. My mind keep wavering on whether to help or not. The problem is they demand money to be transferred immediately as some or the other procedure needs to be done soon else it gets life threatening.

I am all for helping but I don't like being emotionally blackmailed into doing something whether it is good or bad. At the same time, I want to know the following ...

1. How do I know exactly how much money is genuinely required for a surgery or procedure?
2. There are many government hospitals with good tertiary care doctors in Mumbai/Delhi. Why doesn't these NGO's admit the patient there? Hospitals like KEM, JJ, Bhabha etc. are really good Govt. Hospitals. Is there a tie up between this NGO and the hospital to make more money than necessary?
3. How do I know my entire money is spent on the treatment and not funding some middlemen?
4. They claim that we can get tax deduction upto 50% for donations but for that this NGO need to be registered as a charitable trust. How do I know if they are registered for that? Their website do not give any hint of that.
5. Lastly, I have planned a regular donation to totally Govt. agency like National Illness Assistance Fund or National Children's fund. Shouldn't that fund such critically ill patients?


Beware of calls from nationalngo.org and childcarefoundation.org

Another point : When you go to any large shops in shopping malls or convenient stores, at the billing counter the cashier will ask your mobile number. Never give them your mobile number. These numbers get into their database which they eventually sell to these fraud NGOs.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

In my case, it was a SBI bank manager, no less! Same ploy. I was kinda free that time and decided to have some fun.

He was talking in an authoritative tone through out and I acted gullible and scared. Whenever I asked him to get the details himself as he was the bank manager, he threatened to block my account and I wouldn't be able to withdraw even a rupee.

Same thing happened at my place. Someone called up my dad and threatened to block his card unless it was renewed urgently. My dad is a bit senile, and went ahead and gave him the card details. I was just passing by when i saw him give out the card details. Immediately cut the call, and blocked the card.

I wonder if there has been some breach at SBI.

[nijelj]

Not necessarily a spam call. However lately someone called Prasad is going into different dealerships and enquiring about new cars. The problem is he is using my number as his contact number. Today I got 3 dearlership calls, one each from Maruti, Ford and Mahindra. From Maruti I even got an sms thanking for my Enquiry.
I have this habit of leaving my card on my dash when I park in residential neighbourhoods, so that they can call if required. I’m not sure if that is how this Prasad got my number.
Should I be worried?

[DriverR]

Just last week i got a call supposedly from an NGO ("Kids Care Foundation" as per Truecaller), where the lady gave a talk on the support needed by the children and finally asked if i would like to make a donation. Till then, i was patiently listening. When she asked for donation, i said, I am sorry but I would not be making a donation. Immediately, she said, but why not, the children needs support and so on. Again, i said more firmly, I am sorry but I will not be making a donation. (during this time my young son walked into the room, said something and walked out. the lady heard it and immediately used this point. She said, sir you have a child. how can you say no to supporting other children. Why do not want to donate. Tell me a reason...I lost it at this point. I was still speaking politely as I could. I replied, I am sorry but I will be cutting the line now. I told you I was not interested to make a donation. She again started asking me tell me a reason why not. I just cut the line. Within a min, I got a call which Truecaller marked as Spam. I did not even pick the call.

While I am pretty sure this was a fraud call, what really bugged me was the lady constantly asking why i did not want to donate. As if i need to justify my actions to a random stranger over a phone!

[saket77]

A huge rise in calls asking you to invest in the stock market through firms based mostly in Indore/ Madhya Pradesh. Anyone with a demat account must be feeling the same. I am sure the demat database has been SOLD somewhere in the chain sharing all our details.

Receiving at least 1, and at the max 4 calls everyday asking me about "How my trading is going on in stocks these days?"

[gtonsing]

Originally Posted by saket77

A huge rise in calls asking you to invest in the stock market

Same experience here. Though it has died down a bit these days, a couple of months ago, these calls were coming in fast and furious. And to me, who does not understand the S of Stock exchange or Share markets! The surprising thing was my number was with me for atleast 10 years and I have not changed. I had never dabbled in Stocks or shares. Very surprised they got my number, sometimes even along with my name, almost hilariously mis-pronounced

[Spinnerr]

Originally Posted by nijelj

Not necessarily a spam call. However lately someone called Prasad is going into different dealerships and enquiring about new cars. The problem is he is using my number as his contact number. .....
Should I be worried?

This might not be something to be alarmed about. I had this colleague of mine who was paranoid of his personal number being available to these telemarketers.

When shopping with him, I realized that he just switches the last digit of this true phone number. So, yours could be one such incident, because it is consistent across dealerships.

Ps: My colleagues name isn't Prasad, else we would have nailed this in a jiffy.

Pps: Some times to get on his nerves I ask loudly at the billing counter, "Isn't your number xxxxx? When did you change it?"

[condor]

Getting calls saying I have won a SUV after purchasing items on PayTM. Vehicles offered - Safari, Nexon etc. I even got a SMS today for this. They ask for payment of abut 6-7.5k to process it, and I am supposed to bear registration & Road tax expneses.

[bigron]

The favorite is of course, " Hello Sir, I am the bank manager of XYZ bank, main branch calling. Your credit/debit card has been blocked. "

Normally I hang up but sometimes I respond just for kicks.

[Newpunter]

I have been receiving these scam calls whenever I return any item on Amazon. I suspect that the courier guys are sharing these return details to the scamsters.
The first time I got this call, I had just returned an item on Amazon. This guy called me up and told me that he was calling me from Amazon and that he wanted to know why I had returned the item. I told him that it was a size issue, although I was wondering why he didn't know the reason if he was calling from Amazon (since we specify the reason when returning any item). Next, he told me that my refund was blocked due to some reason and that I had to forward an SMS message that I would receive in the next few seconds, to a number he told me, and then the refund would be processed. I immediately smelled a scam and disconnected. I assumed that he was just phishing and he really had no idea if I had returned an item or not.

A few days later, I had returned another item on Amazon and like clockwork, I got a call from another number with a similar scam. This time, I wanted to get more details, so I asked him what was the order number, and lo and behold, he gave me the order number, as well as the name of the item I had returned. So I was convinced that someone from the courier side was helping these guys and sending this information to them. Next, he repeated the same thing as the previous call. I asked him what was the reason for my refund getting stuck (it wasn't and I had already received my refund) and he tells me that it was a technical issue. I pushed him for more details and he kept repeating that it was a technical issue. Next, he gave me the number to which I was supposed to forward the SMS. I said ok and disconnected. In a few seconds, I got an SMS with the OTP that we get for resetting the UPI Pin. So if I forwarded that message to someone, they could reset my UPI pin and transfer money from my account to theirs.

The scary thing is that these guys spoke pretty good English and Hindi and they had the correct Order details, so it is easy for people to fall for this scam.

Further, the SMS that we get for resetting UPI Pin doesn't have any details, it is just a bunch of randomly generated characters, so unsuspecting users might not realize that they are forwarding the keys to their bank account to the scamsters.

[AZT]

Originally Posted by Newpunter

I have been receiving these scam calls whenever I return any item on Amazon. I suspect that the courier guys are sharing these return details to the scamsters.

Further, the SMS that we get for resetting UPI Pin doesn't have any details, it is just a bunch of randomly generated characters, so unsuspecting users might not realize that they are forwarding the keys to their bank account to the scamsters.

This is scary. I wouldn't fall for this but my mother could be gullible, she doesn't have any online account luckily. This whole forwarding message and changing UPI pin scam makes a lot of sense now, I've always wondered how people get money from their Google Pay etc deducted without their pin. Thanks for informing.