Hyderabad: Taking a cue from Nigerian scamsters, Indians based in Noida and Delhi are targeting Hyderabadis using the same old 419 scam but they have refined the process.
The Delhi-Noida fraudsters concentrate on two major tricks: offer of a lottery or prize or loans. Unlike the Nigerian gangs, who send bulk emails about a non-existing lottery and wait for someone to take the bait, the Delhi-based gangs personally call up individual targets over the phone and speak in Hindi and English.
They also make profiles of their victims carefully, taking their contact details illegally from major online stores. In lottery/prize trick, the scamster calls up the victim, who would have purchased some goods from online stores, and tells him that he has won a huge prize or a lottery for shopping on the site.
In order to convince the victims, different persons call up the victims multiple times pretending to be executives from the same firm. Once the victim is convinced, they ask them to pay registration charges, tax, processing fee among others. Once the victims pay up, they disappear into thin air.
“It is a well-planned trap. Once you are in, it takes a lot of time to get out. By then, you will have lost a lot of money,” said Cyber Crime inspector P. Ravi Kiran, who investigates such cases.
“They call up victims and say that they have won several lakhs of rupees after their purchase from a specific website. When the scamsters give the full name of the victim and the purchase details, even educated persons get persuaded. Once the victim falls for it, they ask him or her to pay a small amount towards processing charges and registration,” Mr Ravi Kiran said.
The scam usually starts with a small amount and and the victim is gradually lured to pay more and more. “Usually the victims, who ‘chase’ the promised prize money, are ready to go to any extent and spend a lot of money to get the prize,” said another official from the CCS.
In the loan fraud, scamsters call up the victims, provide them their details and promise a low interest loan of a huge amount. Once the victims walk into the trap, they fleece them in the name of various charges and levies.
