[SilentEngine]

There's a new type of scam going on - asking people to pay for traffic fines on phone/WhatsApp (obviously not by the police, but someone impersonating as police).

Here's how it goes:
1. You will get a call from a police constable "Kumar Swamy" from Vasanth Nagar police station in Bangalore.
2. He already knows your name, phone number and car registration number.
3. He says there's some outstanding traffic violation against the car, and you need to clear it soon. Amount of fine may vary.
4. He will share the traffic violation details on WhatsApp, along with a QR code that you can make the payment against using UPI.
5. He will also share a photo of an ID card (this will be sent as a disappearing message, so you can only see it once).

I got a call like this, and sensed something was wrong. First, why would police call people for fines of Rs 1000 or 1500? And, why does a Bangalore Police constable initiate a conversation in English? That was funny, i tried to respond back in Kannada, but he continues in his English!

I checked the KSP app (official app of Karnataka State Police), and the violation sent in WhatsApp is indeed correct! Photo matches and also the timestamp mentioned in the photo!

But, when you scan the QR code, it shows the name as 'Rupali Majumdar' with UPI id traffic16@ibl.

Basically whoever is doing this scam has access to outstanding traffic violations, and also has access to the car registration details (owner's name, phone number etc). Scam itself is rookie level, but someone who is not alert enough can easily fall for this.

I did some search and found that it was recently reported in Indian Express few weeks back, so looks like a fairly recent scam going on.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/sta...s-2648124.html

Mods: please move it appropriately if this does not warrant a new thread.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

There's a new type of scam going on - asking people to pay for traffic fines on phone/WhatsApp (obviously not by the police, but someone impersonating as police).
..

Pays to be vigilant these days!
Please report this to the police, since there is a UPI ID, it should be easy to trace it (and most likely will lead to an innocent victim of impersonation). Nonetheless, if the cops get serious, they should be able to catch the perpetrators. At the least, they cause some inconvenience to the scammers by blocking the account.

https://cybercrime.gov.in/Webform/crmcondi.aspx

[unni246]

Guess this part of a wider scam fast spreading across India, just seen this reported by Hyderabad city council on their FB page:

[anjan_c2007]

A very brand new, unheard methodology in use to fleece the gullible. Cyber crminals swindle lakhs in the normal course by targeting credit/debit cards and bank/UPI accounts. But this cyber criminal impersonating as one from the traffic department swindles one or a few thousands targeting maybe many hundreds.

The English speaking Kumar Swamy could meet his nemesis soon. This Kumar Swamy has access to full vehicle and owner details which only law enforcers are entitled to and not the ordinary public. That's a breach.

The "Vasanth Nagar constable" (Vasanth means spring season) Kumar Swamy could soon face the monsoon of his life. And the person "Rupali Majumdar's" face (Rupali means pretty) could soon become ugly after he or she is trapped.

[rahulpandita]

Just sharing here for everyone:

For scam websites, I prefer a more direct approach. Over the past few months, I have received a few messages with links impersonating various banks. I open up the links in a Virtual Machine on my desktop (these websites are usually targeted at phone users and as an extra precaution I stick to the VM). Once I have the domain name, I look up the registrar on Whois and report to them (they have an abuse email listed). I have had success with Hostinger and GoDaddy blocking those domains. Hostinger did it in a few hours while GoDaddy took a couple days but at the end the website was shutdown. Scammers will never stop but one website getting shutdown saves a lot of potential victims.

[ChristComesSoon]

Thanks for calling attention to these scam artists.

Unfortunately, India is known the world over for the scammer industry.

After all, with that amazing american accent, who won't be fooled?

https://youtu.be/U9s5tCBHCas?si=YtcWuQ7oLaYC5Jqx

Another engaging channel: 'Scammer payback'

[rahulpandita]

Originally Posted by ChristComesSoon

Thanks for calling attention to these scam artists.

Unfortunately, India is known the world over for the scammer industry.

After all, with that amazing american accent, who won't be fooled?

Another engaging channel: 'Scammer payback'

Few days back, I kept getting calls from 'Airtel' saying my STB wasn't active for a while and I need to submit my box back so they need my details. When asked about the customer ID, all they could say was 'ye 001'. On probing further, they simply hung up.

But the scale of theft outside India is just unbelievable. I've been following quite a lot of these channels for the past year: Scammer Payback, Trilogy Media, Kitboga, Mark Rober, Jim Browning to name a few. And you can see the scammers keep adapting and improvising their process.

Across all of these channels, there's one common conclusion - law enforcement in India is not doing enough to stop these scams. Even if a centre is raided, the owners go scot-free and the scam is up and running again in a few days. That is why I took the 'direct approach' route.

P.S. Kitboga is an evil genius, he screws around with these scammers and it is so entertaining to watch

[pariwar]

A new phone scam to which I was at the receiving end, this morning:

A caller (Hindi with a definite north of south India, accent) calls out some name (not mine) and I tell him that he has the wrong number and hang up.

A few minutes later, he calls again and says my name correctly this time (immediately understood that Truecaller has now provided him this information). He asks me why I keep calling up this number - mentions four digits - and harassing his wife with bad words and that he has Daroga ji with him.

Understanding that it is a scam call, I very casually told him, OK! What more information do you have? He repeats the same line and once again invoking Daroga ji. I once again, told him to say something new, other than repeating.

This time he says the police will come to my place and arrest me. In a happy voice, I told him to please go ahead and I will be pleased to meet them.

I switched tactic and told him that I was also from the police and that I will track him. He paused for a couple of seconds and once again threatened to send the police to me. I repeated my previous statement and he disconnected.