Hyderabad: Three weeks ago, P. Mallesh of Kondapur got a phone call from a person who introduced himself as a bank manager with SBI. The Truecaller app on the 32-year-old education consultant’s smartphone had indeed showed the caller as ‘SBI Bank Manager.’ And so, it did not take much for the caller to convince Mallesh of his credentials. The caller went on to collect details of Mallesh’s debit card, smooth-talking him into initiating a card upgrade process and even revealing the OTP number Mallesh received for the same. In the next two hours, Mallesh lost Rs 43,000 from his bank account.
“I did not think twice after Truecaller identified him as bank manager. He said that I had been using my debit card frequently after demonetisation and I had reached the limit for card usage. He told me that if I did not upgrade the card immediately, it would be blocked. He then asked for my card number, PIN and OTP. Believing he was a bank official, I gave him all details. It was only when I lost the money that I realised the caller was a fraudster,” Mallesh said.
Five months after demonetisation, debit card fraudsters have found new ways to dupe ure people. The Mallesh case shows that they have now found a way to beat even caller identification apps like Truecaller. “The Truecaller app lets you edit or add a name against a number. Since most smartphone users have this app on their phone, scamsters use it to dupe educated people, who believe whatever appears in Truecaller,” a police officer said.
Debit card fraud is on the rise. “We get 60 cases a month in Rachakonda. Scamsters collect card details and then transfer money out of the victim’s account into an e-wallet or buy something expensive online”, said Md. Riyazuddin, cybercrime inspector at the Rachakonda police commissionerate.
Police records show that as many as 124 cases have been booked in just one month in three commissionerates.
