Is India becoming the Global Hotbed For Online Scams?

SCAM! What is a Scam? A scam is a deceptive scheme or trick used to cheat someone out of something, especially money. SCAM is a Fraud, Swindle, Racket, trick, call it what you want eh?!

Did you know that there are numerous scams that Indian fraudsters do not only practice on Indian citizens but people globally; in fact, over 95 percent of global scam calls originate from India. Shocking right?! Anyway, there are many types of scams, but let us tell you some of the most common scams:

· Tech Support Scams

· Business Opportunities or Employment Scams

· Shopping Sprees

· UPI Scams

· Video call Scams

· SIM Swap Scam

· Dating App Scams

· Crypto “recovery” scams

Tech Support Scams –

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reveals gullible American citizens lost nearly $10 billion in a fake call center scam in India

Lines are blurred between actual call centers and fake call centers as sometimes a single BPO office might be running a legal business and might have separate staff on the same floor running a scam call center. Not so fun fact!- Gurugram is a hub for Scam Call Centers

The scammers either steal data from tech companies they have worked for and start small call centers where they scam people.

Moving onto the second one, Business Opportunities or Employment Scams

In this, there are jobs in which you are either required to pay upfront for any purpose such as for training or equipment or they simply send you the checks to deposit.

These are Scams! Especially when you don’t have any information or knowledge of the company other than what they said to you. There are also some ‘too good to be true’ jobs. Such as they’re paying you extremely well, they haven't even had a formal- legitimate interview, the job is too easy to get and requires very less work, don’t give you any official documents from their side and they additionally spice it up with ‘from the comfort of your own home!’ - Please be suspicious at times like these, it’s a scam.

Now this third one is a bit too appealing! Shopping Sprees

In This, traditionally scammers used to just call you, but now in the techno-savvy social media world they will message you on Instagram, WhatsApp saying ‘oh you have a wonderful profile, you have a well-maintained feed’, ‘you’re gorgeous’ and then offer you to be their model or face, or just for the product review. You’ll get the offer just like a “$500 shopping spree” or their products, which they will not provide apparently, and add on by saying that they are from a well know company or a government agency (in some cases) and tell you that you have won exciting prices or the coupons. Then, the caller asks for your bank account number in order to collect a small fee. They say the fee is for shipping and handling of your vouchers. It's a scam!

Never disclose financial information to unsolicited callers for any reason whatsoever. Shopping spree promotions are usually, well most of the time, fake!

In order to make the payments easy peasy and make Our India a digital India, Unified Payment Interface or UPI was introduced. But with Boon comes the Bane! How they are doing the UPI Scam? Online scammers use "payment mistake" tactics to trick money and steal money from your bank accounts linked to UPI. Scammers send money to you on your UPI apps like Google Pay and then contact you claiming that they made the transfer by mistake. Then the unknown caller requests you to send the money back to their number. However, as soon as you’ll sends the money back, the scammers will hack into your UPI account and steal money directly from your bank account.

This is the scam you must’ve heard recently, Video Call Scam.

Video call takes place mostly on dating apps and other times on WhatsApp. In this many innocent men and boys are trapped in sextortion. The malicious people will video call you and as soon as you accept the call you’ll see a person on the other side, mostly women, start stripping their clothes. Now you’ll say ‘what if we end the call immediately?’ Nah, it doesn't work like that, they start recording your face and reaction at the same time. Then the video for extortion asks for a high amount of money in lieu of sparing it from sharing.

It’s simple, to avoid this situation just don’t pick up the video call from an unknown person or number or those you have just met. Always verify the other person, even on dating apps. Don’t worry, genuine ones stay!