Beware! Fake 'Free Jio TV for Rs 11' SMS scam stealing credit, debit card information
A fake text (SMS) message being circulated around is out to steal personal details and credit/debit card information. The message speaks about a free offer from Reliance Jio TV, claiming free 90-day subscription and free installation for just Rs 11. The message refers to the offer where customers can pay online, but it actually is mining for information with an intention to dupe users.
Modus operandi:
The SMS message claims to be an "amazing offer" which arrives into your messaging box from an unknown website 'jiodishtvshop.com'. We received a similar message a day ago from AM-AMZOFF, which looked like a pretty authentic messaging service, and not sent from any mobile number (which can easily be spotted as a possible scam or fake). It states that your mobile number has won a 'free Jio Dish TV 90-day subscription for just Rs 11.'
The message also carries a link to avail this offer. Clicking on the link takes you to a authentic-looking web page which gives a small introduction about booking the Jio Dish TV.
Once you scroll down, a button stating ‘Book Now’ appears. One needs to enter important information such as name, email, address and phone number for the offer. Then one needs to click on a button that indicates that you’ve read and agreed with all the terms and conditions and then you are directed to the next page. We knew that there is no such offer and hence out of curiosity, we entered all fake information, as a test.
What seems to be very surprising is that even though we entered mere random alphabets, we were still directed to the next page. This shows that there is no authentic testing whether the details entered are true or incorrect.
The next window was a so-called ‘Paytm’ website, named 'offers24hours.com'. This webpage is well-disguised as a payment page. For making a payment of Rs 11, a transaction ID is provided to the user. The payment window asks for a payment options, which the user can choose between Debit Card, Credit Card and BHIM UPI.
A notification on the same page claims ‘Your payment details are secured via 128-bit encryption by Verisign,’ but it's definitely not true. The same page asks for the card details ahead. Once the user enters the payment details, the next tab asks for security 3D Secure PIN (which the bank asks you to generate for any online transaction using a credit or debit card), that the user has to enter to proceed with the final payment. Here too, we entered all wrong information, but there was no check whether the card details are even authentic. As a targeted user, who is fooled, he ends up entering all this confidential data online, thinking that his transaction has been approved.
We again entered random numbers just to check the authentication. Once we submitted the 3D secure PIN (which wasn’t even real), a succeeding window popped up saying ‘OOPS-Something went wrong’. Here the user could be fooled into thinking that either his internet connection has failed or there has been a transaction failure, forcing him to either re-enter the details all over again, or use another card for the same transaction. So, in short, the user has been fooled into entering multiple personal and confidential information, that the hacker has now saved on his servers.
In this world of online transactions, people are continuously alerted about scams. However, hackers and scamsters are spending more time and money into making authentic-looking websites that fools us time and again. In order to stay away from such scams, we urge our readers to be careful about such messages, and never enter personal information without confirming its authenticity. For messages like this one, where the message seemed authentically sent from a service (AM-AMZOFF), the best one can do is research around to find out about the offer and also try the test we did, by entering fake information.
Also read: WhatsApp: How to trick a scam message
