Cyber thief swaps SIM card, dupes 32-yr-old Mumbai resident of ₹61,000

Cyber advocate Vicky Shah said he has seen a rise in such cases over the past three years.

A 32-year-old man from Dahisar was duped of ₹61,000 by a cyber-criminal using a method of SIM card-swapping. The victim was tricked into changing his SIM card by the fraudster who later used the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to withdraw money from his account.

Sim card fraudsters scan your social media for personal details (HT Photo)

The complainant, who requested anonymity, told HT, “Earlier this month around 2pm, I received a phone call from a man posing as an executive from a network service provider I was using. He told me that I had not linked my mobile number with my Aadhar card and so my number would soon be blocked. In order to prevent my number from being blocked, he instructed me to message him a code to 121. He told me that my number would be switched off for a day.”

After sending the message, the complainant’s account was disconnected for 24 hours. The victim’s phone number was linked to two of his bank accounts and the fraudster changed the bank record of the mobile phone details to reflect his own contact number. He then used the UPI service to withdraw money from the two bank accounts. Approximately ₹42,000 was withdrawn from one account and ₹19,000, from the second account.

“After finding out that I had been duped, I approached the MHB Colony police on 12 June and lodged a complaint. I gave a copy of the first information report (FIR) to the bank. I don’t know if they will return the money,” said the complainant.

Cyber advocate Vicky Shah said that he has seen a rise in such cases over the past three years. “The best preventive step is to avoid any SMS response or providing an OTP for any phone verification. If in doubt, visit the phone network store in person. People falling prey to such crimes are also at fault because it would take gross negligence on the part of the victim to divulge so much personal information on a phone call.”