There is a new scam hitting the market, and it is quite alarming, if you ask me. This businessman from Mumbai has just lost 1.86 crores when he became a victim of the SIM swapping fraud.
The victim, Mr. Shah, had received 6 missed calls on his phone number at around 2 am in the morning. The numbers seemed to be coming from the UK, since it had the +44 code.
However, when he called back on the same number in the morning, he was stunned to find that his SIM card had already been deactivated. When he called his service provider, they told him that he himself had requested for the deactivation.
Fearing that this was a scam, he called his bank to find that 1.86 crores had been stolen from his account. It was discovered that the money had been transferred to 14 accounts across the country through twenty eight different transactions.
After the scam was revealed, the bank tried to get the money back but was only able to recover 20 lakhs. The rest of the amount has not been recovered yet.
This new scam is known as SIM swapping. Here the scammers get hold of your unique SIM number, and can swap your SIM by calling on your phone.
There are a lot of suspicious websites out there, some of which might be resembling your bank’s actual website. Remember, when you open any website apart from the official website of your bank, you could be compromising your personal details. SIM frauds are on the rise, and it is better to be safe than sorry.
