While credit or debit card scams are nothing new, they get more sophisticated every once in a while. One such case of a sophisticated scam came to light when film critic Sucharita Tyagi received a call from a scammer impersonating a Delhi Police official allegedly investigating ATM card theft.
The scam started with Tyagi receiving an automated call that claimed to be from Delhi Police and informed her that she needed to pick up some documents. Then, the call connected her to the scammer who claimed to be the Sub-Inspector (SI) at the Kirti Nagar Police Station and identified himself as Rahul Singh after being pressed to reveal his identity.
This English-speaking scammer then told Tyagi, who he addressed as ‘Sujata’ that they had caught a thief named Vipul Singh who had some stolen ATM cards, including hers. The scammer went on to ask her to confirm the last four digits of the card number, at which point Tyagi hung up the call saying she’ll get in touch with the Kirti Nagar Police Station directly.
While Tyagi was able to see the red flags and identify the scam, she did point out in a Twitter thread on the matter that the automated call and the entire conversation were really convincing. However, small things like the call being from a nine-digit number (+91 96681 9555) instead of the usual ten and the fact that the scammer messed up by addressing her with the wrong name made the scam clear.
These small anomalies can protect you in such cases, where it might get difficult to tell the scam apart. Additionally, the actual Delhi Police, who were tagged in Tyagi’s Twitter thread, have also urged people to report such cases to the Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.
In the News: Sophisticated web skimmer attack exploited e-commerce websites
