A man lost Rs 94,000 to SIM swap fraud

Things to know about this online banking scam 

Recently, a man in Pune lost Rs 93,500 to SIM swap fraud. Not only digitally-illiterate people fall prey to this scam, but even tech-savvy urban youth also become victims of this fraud. Senior citizens are the prime targets of these types of scams. It is essential to advise them regularly and tell them not to entertain unknown callers. Criminals have developed different methods to commit SIM swap frauds; here are a few things you must know to prevent this fraud. 

Be very careful when you receive a call from someone and hear that your SIM card will be deactivated if you don’t update it. As it’s a classic SIM swap fraud trap. One of the most common cyber-frauds happening in India. 

You can be deceived by just sharing details on call In SIM swap

SIM card exchange or SIM Swap is actually registering a new SIM card with your contact number. After it is done, the SIM card becomes invalid and the phone will not receive the signal. Once the troublemakers have your contact number, they will receive OTPs on their SIM card. With this, they can do all online banking activities. 

It begins with an unknown call, saying it is from Airtel, Vodafone etc.

They will call you pretending as an executive from some service provider. He or she will say that it’s a routine call to fix or improve call drop problem or signal reception on your phone. He/she will also assure you to get more mobile data or increase mobile internet speeds or simply can ‘guide’ you migrate to a 4G SIM card.

Entire discussion target is to get your 20-digit SIM number

Every SIM card has this 20-digit number, behind your SIM card. The troublemaker will try everything to know your unique 20-digit SIM number. The troublemaker will convince you to share your 20-digit unique number to a phone number to get the desired service or fix the signal problem. 

You will be asked to press 1 or confirm this Swap

After convincing you to share the unique SIM number, the troublemaker will ask you to press 1 or just validate the SIM swap. The procedure over here is that the troublemaker after receiving the unique SIM number will initiate the ‘Swap’ with your telecom operator officially. Your telecom operator will send a confirmation SMS to your phone number and the troublemaker would want you to press 1 to validate the SIM Swap. With this, your telecom operator will understand that you have officially initiated the SIM Swap but then the scamster will hijack your phone number. 

Your mobile will stop receiving signal 

After the swap is successful, your SIM card will stop working and you will not get any signal on your phone. Whereas, the scamster’s new SIM card with your mobile number will get full signal.

How you lose money if your SIM is hijacked? 

It is actually a two-step procedure. And sadly, SIM Swap is the second step of the procedure. In most cases, the scamster already has details about your banking ID and password. They just need the OTP that you receive on your registered mobile number to do financial transactions.

How did they get your banking details?

Mostly this is done through phishing attacks. If you happen to open a fake version of your banking website then all your details get compromised.

Never share your Aadhaar number over the phone

Just imagine if the scamsters have got access to your phone number as well as Aadhaar number. Nowadays most services can be accessed using both these together and once your Aadhaar number and phone number is available, it can lead to serious identity theft.

Never switch off or mute your phone to ignore anonymous calls

In many cases, after the scamster has successfully imitated a SIM Swap, he/she will disturb you to make you agitated and switch off or mute your phone. Generally, telecom operators take up to four hours time to activate a new SIM. So, the scamster will continuously disturb you so that you either switch off phone or silent it during this 4-hour window. You will not even come to know when the Swap is complete.