'SIM Swap' banking fraud: Mumbai businessman loses Rs 1.86 crore to missed calls
New Delhi : Losing money to missed calls sounds strange but yes it is true. The absurd money scam has been doing rounds in India for quite some time. Named as 'SIM Swap'fraud, the money hacking technique has been tricked many times across the country. The fraudulent method is used by criminals to trick mobile phone users who finally end up losing huge money in a few minutes.
Recently, a Mumbai-based businessman lost Rs 1.86 crore to six late night missed calls. Thinking how? It's nothing but the most dangerous banking fraud 'SIM Swap'. The cybercells of Police departments in cities like Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi have already reported several instances of 'SIM Swap'. In this case, the prey is the digitally illiterate people. Several tech-savvy urban youths too have ended up falling for this cyber fraud. Here's all you need to know about the SIM Swap fraud and how many people lost their money in a matter of minutes.
Now, if you have shifted your mobile network from a 2G to 3G or 4G SIM card, then you must know that you have actually used the SIM Swap technology to register for a new SIM card.Also, the time when you migrated from traditional SIM cards to the new nano SIM cards you had also used this technology.
It must be known that every SIM card has this 20-digit number. Just look at the back of your SIM card. In a fraud case, either the scamster will try to convince you share your 20-digit unique number or they have already hacked it to get it.
According to a report by Mumbai Mirror, cyber criminals had got access to the victim’s unique SIM number and had initiated the SIM Swap process in the night to go undetected.
So, basically, the Mumbai man lost his 1.86 crore money in two-step process. And unfortunately SIM Swap is the part two of the fraud process. The scamster, in most cases, already has information about your banking ID and password. All they need is the OTP that you get on your registered mobile number to make financial transactions. Criminals can easily have access to the victim's bankking details through a fake version, thereby getting personal details automatically.
It is also true that sometimes, insiders are also involved to provide cruical details to the hackers. Personal banking details or the unique SIM card number could be misused by people who are close to the victim. The Mumbai man has received six missed calls between 11 pm and 2 am, from two numbers, including one showing the United Kingdom dialling code +44. However, his phone was in silent mode in the night and the calls went unnoticed.
After scanning the man's SIM card details, hackers transferred a total of Rs 1.86 crore money to 14 accounts across the country.
SIM card exchange is basically registering a new SIM card with your phone number. Once it is done, your SIM card will become invalid and your phone will stop receiving signal. Now, once the miscreants have your phone number, they will get OTPs on their SIM card. With this they can initiate bank transfer and even opt to shop online after getting OTPs. If you come across such scam numbers and callers then be sure not to share any information with them. Instead you should report the number immediately.
