The menace of online scams has gone up to a new high with scamsters now picking up on innovative ways to cheat people of their earnings. In a recent incident involving SIM swap fraud, the Mumbai Policy cyber officials learned how scamsters were seeking access to their victims’ bank transactions. All they did was send impersonators to the mobile operator companies with swapped SIM cards to collect details of the One Time Password (OTP) of the bank transactions. This modus operandi came to light with the complaint by a Matunga-based businessman defrauded of ₹7.7 lac from his bank account, reported The Free Press Journal.
Investigations revealed how the tricksters get a new SIM card issued against the victims’ registered mobile numbers via their respective mobile service providers. They then get access to the OTPs and other alerts, via these new SIM cards, that the victims use to carry out various financial transactions through their bank accounts. With instances of this kind being on the rise, the police also found during the investigation that fraudsters also get access to their victims’ AADHAAR card copies. One of the group members with a striking resemblance to the victim impersonates him to obtain a fresh SIM card with the same number, thus, invalidating the original SIM card in the victim’s mobile phone. The fraudsters were then able to receive the bank alerts, texts and OTPs, thus, making it easy for them to commit fraudulent bank transactions sans any hassle. The victims have no clue of the same misconceive the loss of network as a “network issue” error.
In this incident, the businessman had received a call from someone posing as a bank employee seeking his details like his registered email id, mobile number, and debit card number under the pretext of his card being blocked. The businessman unaware of the scam obliged the request made and shared all his details only to find out that his mobile services had been suspended within three hours of the call received. The complainant had then received an email requesting his permission for a change in the online banking account’s password. Owing to the loss of network, the businessman had received this email later. On the restoration of the network later, the businessman then received a message from the bank intimating him of a debit transaction of ₹7,71,048 from his savings account.