New Delhi: As internet penetration has increased in India, cyber scams have also increased and now everyone is left unscathed. Scammers and cybercriminals are devising new methods every day from more and more people to trick them out of their hard-earned money.
One of the recent activities by cyber crooks is to use international numbers to lure potential targets and extort money under the pretext of offering easy money.
These scammers and cybercriminals use Internet-based instant messaging applications to contact potential targets, lure them in with part-time job offers, or send fake likes and views to YouTube videos. They offer it and ask you to make money in return.
These criminals use international codes starting with +84 (Vietnam), +62 (Indonesia), +1 (United States), +212 (Morocco), +251 (Ethiopia) to send random WhatsApp messages. This includes contacting users. +880 (Bangladesh) and others offer them part-time jobs or offer to follow, like and share videos on YouTube and his Instagram (social media application) .
This correspondent has also been receiving such messages and calls from these international numbers for the past two months. Most of these calls are voice calls and hang up after two or three rings. From the same number or several international numbers, he receives three calls at once.
To find out what the scam is about, this correspondent replied to one of the messages he received on WhatsApp chat that started with “Hi, I’m XXX. Are you looking for extra income?” When I answered yes, the person introduced himself as an employee of a popular job site in India and said he was looking for people to like his YouTube videos on a large scale. Hey!” I said I would be paid 150 rupees per case. .
Going further, the scammers sent this correspondent a pro forma asking for details such as name, date of birth, education and current work history.
After completing the form, the correspondent was shared a YouTube video and asked to like the video on his account and share a screenshot, after which 150 rupees were credited to his account. I was.
But the correspondent stopped at this point, saying it was unwise to share bank account details. The scammers, on the one hand, ask for bank account details or her UPI ID to transfer money to that account, and to earn even more income, they use her Telegram, another internet-based instant messaging application. I was able to add it to the group.
However, upon investigation, it was found that the Telegram group was set up to lure targets into investing in cryptocurrencies to get quick money and double their income in 3 days. I was. Since then, the correspondent has received regular calls and messages from international numbers such as +212-679-911022, +84-84-284-5083, +1(680)-2039339, +84-94-6502843. Receiving. other numbers.
Twitter also frequently receives such messages and calls after completing simple tasks such as liking YouTube videos, with some users posting stories of offering part-time jobs or simple money. and has become a hot topic. Twitter user Varun Ganju said he was invited to a part-time job that offered him an income of Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 a day just by liking videos on social media. In his Twitter thread, Ganju also explained how he was taken to a Telegram group that offered to double his money within a certain period of time by investing in cryptocurrencies.
“Be careful, everyone should be receiving random calls and messages on WhatsApp from international numbers with pictures of beautiful girls,” wrote another Twitter user. They are deceiving people, so don’t be deceived. ”
The Delhi Police have also received numerous complaints about such fraud in the capital and have reported it to WhatsApp. A Delhi police official said they have received complaints from people who have lost between Rs 3-50 crore to these scams.
The Delhi Police Authority also said such a wave of fraudulent and spam calls was unprecedented and the sheer number of users receiving these calls had never been seen before, adding that such calls and advise people not to respond to messages. Rather, block those numbers and report them on WhatsApp.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is also aware of the issue and has asked WhatsApp to resolve the issue. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also taken up this issue with Meta (the owner of WhatsApp) to address and fix this issue as soon as possible.
WhatsApp issued the following statement on Thursday: “WhatsApp is the leader in end-to-end encryption services that keep users safe. to actively keep bad actors out of the platform.However, bad actors use a variety of methods to trick users.International scam calls are a new method recently adopted by bad actors. “Missed calls encourage curious users to call and message back, only to get scammed,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson.
“Therefore, we quickly enhanced our AI and ML systems to significantly reduce such incidents. Our new enforcement has reduced our current call rate by at least 50%, We hope to be able to effectively control the number, and we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure a safe experience for our users,” a WhatsApp spokesperson added.
