Mumbai: The cyber fraudsters are adopting innovative methods to dupe poeple. Recently, a tuition teacher from Gamdevi area was duped to the tune of Rs 2.52 lakh by a fraudster posing as a representative of a mobile services provider. The fraudster lured her by offering her to convert her SIM card into eSIM. eSIM is an embedded SIM which is similar to a normal SIM but does not have a physical presence. The eSIM technology is embedded directly into the eSIM enabled devices.
Nikita Inamdar, 48, a resident of Gamdevi area received a call from a person named Piyush on July 27 who introduced himself as a customer care representative of her mobile network service provider. He offered her to convert her SIM card into eSIM.
"I was anyways troubled with network issue and thought converting will improve it. Moreover, I got a new phone as a gift on my birthday and thought the eSIM might work in it, so I accepted his offer," said Inamdar.
The caller then sent her two messages and told her to forward it to the customer care number, he further told her that the conversion will take four working days and for the period her SIM card won't be in operational. Half an hour later sending the messages, her network went off.
Even after 10 days when her SIM card did not start, she approached the gallery where she was told that her request was already processed and her eSIM card is already activated on some device. Smelling something fishy, she immediately rushed to her bank only to realise that she has been cheated for Rs 2,57,810.
When Inamdar checked the messages properly, she realised that one of the messages was of converting her SIM card into eSIM and then activating it in a device given by the fraudster. While the other message was to change her email address registered with the services provider which is the reason she did not been notified during the entire process.
"I can understand that my mobile number was in possession of fraudster for quite a few days, but I have never shared my banking details and even account number with him. Yet he was able to dupe me," she added.
"We have registered a case of online cheating against an unknown accused and we are trying to get details from the bank in which the account was transferred and also enquiring service provider to get details of mobile which was used to access her number," said an officer from Gamdevi police station.
