Cyberabad: The Cyber Criminals are adopting innovative ways to cheat the people by procuring e-SIM Card connection and cheating the innocent customers of Airtel.
Cyber Crime Police Station, Cyberabad is in receipt of complaints of cheating through e-SIM SWAP. In three of these recent cases, the complainants lost their money through e-SIM SWAP and the details of the same are given below.
In the first Case the brief facts are as follows:
The brief facts of the case are that on 14.07.2020 received a complaint from Mr. S.Appalanaidu, R/o. Miyapur, Hyderabad that on 11.07.2020 he received a message from QP-TXTSMS as “Dear Customer Your SIM Card Will Be Blocked in 24 hours Please Update Your eKYC verification Thanks”. After which he received a call in the name of customer care of Airtel, who informed him about sending of the message and asked to update the KYC details in online by forwarding the e-mail Id sent by him to Airtel Customer Care Number which is, # 121 Accordingly, he has forwarded the e-mail Id received from the caller/fraudster to the customer care number of Airtel, #121. After which he is in receipt of an auto-generated message from Airtel about registration of e-mail Id for his mobile number. After which he forwarded the e-SIM request to Airtel by sending the mail Id received from the caller as instructed by the caller. On doing so, he again received an auto-generated message from Airtel, to go ahead with e-SIM enabled handset. Later he received a Google view form link on his mobile from the caller, on which he submitted his bank name and forwarded the same to the caller. After which his SIM card got blocked and an amount of Rs.9,20,897/- has been deducted from his bank accounts. Hence the victim has requested the police for taking necessary action.
In the second Case the brief facts are as follows:
The brief facts of the case are that on 14.07.2020 received a complaint from Mr. Kumar Kaushal Kishore Mishra, R/o. Gachibowli that on 10.7.2020 he received he received a message from QP-TXTSMS as “Dear Customer Your SIM Card Will Be Blocked in 24 hours Please Update Your eKYC verification Thanks”. After which he received a call in the name of customer care of Airtel, who informed him about sending of the message and asked to update the KYC details in online by forwarding the e-mail Id sent by him to Airtel Customer Care Number, # 121 Accordingly, he has forwarded the e-mail Id received from the caller to the customer care number of Airtel, #121. After which he is in receipt of an auto-generated message from Airtel about registration of e-mail Id for his mobile number. After which he forwarded the e-SIM request to Airtel by sending the mail Id received from the caller as instructed by the caller. On doing so, he again received an auto-generated message from Airtel, to go ahead with e-SIM enabled handset. Later he received a Google view form link on his mobile from the caller, on which he submitted his bank name and forwarded the same to the caller. After which his SIM card got blocked and an amount of Rs.5,94,799/- has been deducted from his bank accounts. Hence the victim has requested the police for taking necessary action.
In the third Case the brief facts are as follows:
Similarly, on 22.07.2020 a complaint is received from Mr. Suresh Raman, R/o. Gachibowli that on 20.07.2020 he received a bulk message and call from fraudster as mentioned in the above two instances/cases, when he acted accordingly, he lost an amount of Rs.1,03,990/- from his bank account. Hence the victim has requested the police for taking necessary action.
The Advisory that the Police have given to the public is that in view of the above-mentioned cases the citizens are requested to follow the below-given guidelines.
- Not to believe the messages or calls received from the Cyber fraudsters in the name of updating of KYC documents of Airtel.
- Not to forward the e-mail Id received from the fraudsters to Airtel customer care number i.e, #121.
- Not to forward e-SIM request as instructed by the fraudster to #121
- Do not share bank account credentials on Google view forms.
- Read the auto-generated messages carefully before opening any links or sending confirmation for eSIM requests.
- If you have fallen prey to this kind of fraud. Immediately send “NO SIM” to 121, to stop the e-SIM activation Process.
