The next time your cellphone blinks with a number starting with +92, think twice before attending the call. This unidentified calls originating from Pakistan. The scamsters allegedly duped the residents by claiming: ”You are lucky and have won a lottery of Rs 7-8 lakh… deposit an advance for getting the prize money.”

The latest victim of this telecommunication fraud, which is being operated from Pakistan, is a PGI doctor who reportedly lost Rs 40,000 five days ago. Police investigation reached a dead end when cops probing the complaint realized that the call was made from Pakistan and the culprits were in Karachi. Cyber cell officers said the doctor was not only one; other complainants include retired army officials, local businessman and government employees. The doctor had reportedly deposited Rs 40,000 in the Sector-10 branch of a nationalized bank for claiming his ‘lottery money’ of Rs 4 lakh. Inspector Neeraj Sarna, incharge of cyber crime cell, said the majority of victims were cheated through a similar modus operandi in which a person from Pakistan contacted them.

Police said when the bank account number given by the doctor was examined, its credentials were found fake and the deposited Rs 40,000 had been withdrawn on the same day.

Sources said a few people had been cheated on the pretext of getting a lunch or dinner appointment with a celebrity. Inspector Sarna said, ”A retired lieutenant colonel lost Rs 80,000 when he was promised this. He had deposited the money in a Delhi branch.

These calls belongs to a phone scam. +92 starting phone/mobile numbers belongs to Pakistan. These people generally give missed call to any random number (Specially in India) and innocent victim curiously call back on the number to know who has given missed call to them, which is their first biggest mistake. At start of conversation they will pretend like they are speaking from your mobile service provider and inform you like “Our telephone service provider has selected you as a winner of prize Rs.25,00,000.” or some other amount. These guyz will never call, they just give missed calls. Generally no one bother about the number, actually this is an ISD number (+92). Generally inpostpaid mobile numbers ISD facility is not available by defaultbut in prepaid mobiles, ISD facility is available (depend upon minimum balance criteria).

Strategy: In order to claim this prize, they try to exploit unawareness of public towards mobile phones. They will tell you to follow some steps. I have one example, they will tell you to type *#06# on your phone, a 15-17 digit number will flashed on your mobile screen, which they call a lucky number. This 15-17 digit numbers are nothing butInternational Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of your mobile phone. Unfortunately many are not aware of this and easily caught by their tricks. The ones who doesn’t know about IMEI numbers, will easily get convinced by their assertive conversation.These guys are very week in english and you could easily recognize them by their voice that they are not calling from your mobile service providers call center.

Subsequently, in second step: they will tell you to announce this on news channel, and for this they will give you a phone number which might be a wrong number or number may not exist. For making announcement they will tell you to buy a huge amount recharge coupons (upto Rs.2000) of any telecommunication service provider, DTH recharge coupons etc. They will assure you to give a call back. Again they will give a missed call and victim phone user, in covetousness of Rs 25,00,000, call them back.
This time strategy: they will ask you the scratch the recharge coupons and read out the registration/recharge number and tell you to destroy the recharge coupon immediately. They will sell this recharge number back in India in profitable price (less than its cost price), so that any shop keeper will easily buy it without asking any question, because he is also in profit. Once the recharge coupon is destroyed, it is very difficult to trace back who is going to use it. Once this is done, these scammers will elope and go out of your reach (anyway they are not sitting in your country or city).

These scammers are very cautious about their numbers, after phishing 1-2 victims, they will destroy their numbers, due to this it will become difficult to trace them. Now if you will call back on this number, their number will be out of reach. If you call to the number given by scamers for prize announcement, you will find either a wrong number or the number doesn’t exist.

You have lost:
money cost recharge coupon which you purchased and
ISD call charged which you have made for prize.

If you have lost anything in this kind of scam, go and lodge a complaint in your nearest police station.

Precautions:
Do not pick or call back on the numbers start with +92 until your relatives or known personals are living in that country.
If you ever receive these call, take help from local police to trace them.
Make aware your near and dear ones about this scam.