BENGALURU : As we negotiate our daily digital lives, hopping from mails to chats to social media, the furtive scamster follows, lurking in the dark corners of our mailboxes, and slipping into the folds of WhatsApp messages, waiting to pounce. Many of us are just seconds away from losing our hard-earned salaries to these snapdragons. Besides lighting up firewalls, the average human needs to develop a strong ESP (extra sensory perception) to smell out a phisher.
The latest trick in the scam bag is the FedEx scare: a parcel containing drugs has arrived with your name on it, and the CBI / Mumbai Police / Narcotics department is after you. Unbelievable though it sounds, many have fallen for it. A few months ago, it was the Bescom Annual Security Deposit (ASD) scam. A concerned Bescom ‘officer’ would call up to warn that if the ASD was not paid in the next few hours, Bescom would snap power and plunge your home into darkness. A good friend, believing the conman, sent a basic amount to the QR code sent to her WhatsApp, when enlightenment dawned. She spent the next ten minutes blocking her account and card – better to have a dark home than a black hole in the account.
The new bait is to use information on stocks and shares to entice; the caller asks if “Aap market mein trading kar rahe ho?” and elicits my response, “No, who told you?” (in startled tone). “Aapka PAN mein link bata raha hai...” which is the cue to start a tirade on why, how and who is he to check anyone’s PAN, and so on. Almost every day, attempts are made to break into bank accounts through mails which appear to be clones of your genuine bank: “check your credit rating HERE”, “your CIBIL score is up, click HERE for details”, “your loan has been approved”. Clickbait for the naive.
Accuse me not of linguistic prejudice, but if you do hear ‘Bescom’ officers and stock market experts speak in shuddh Hindi, it should serve as a red flag. Speak to the Bescom man in Kannada, and demand that he responds in the same language, and he will get off the line pretty fast, but not before delivering some choice abuse common in the Hindi heartland (as he did to yours truly). One friend from Kerala has developed a sharp defence mechanism, launching into Malayalam the moment she guesses it’s a scamster or irritating telecaller, effectively ending all conversation. Likewise, we all need our digital armour and wits about us, packaged with a rude demeanour and busy attitude.
(The writers’ views are their own)