Mumbai: Cases of scamsters trying to dupe people on WhatsApp calls by assuming false identities is on the rise. In a recent case, Rishabh Shekhar, co-founder of Pepper Content, shared on X (formerly Twitter) how his father in Mumbai was targetted by one such caller.
Rishabh in his post on X mentioned how his father received a call from a WhatsApp number which had the photo of a police officer.
The caller claimed in his call to the elderly person that his son had been caught with a "rapist" and that he would have to cough out money in order to save his son from police. The caller allegedly also threatened to "leak" the news to the media, if the father did not fulfill his demands.
Entrepreneur posts ordeal
"My father got a call from this number, with a dp of a police officer claiming I have been caught with a rapist and to protect me from media and FIR, he will need to pay him 1 lakh. At that exact moment, my number wasn't reachable. Thankfully, my father did not give in," said the man.
"This is becoming a serious hazard. There needs to be a serious crackdown on such scam and stop this robbing of innocent people off their life savings. My father is shook and can't comprehend how someone can stoop so low and do such a thing. Posting it here for awareness," he said in his post on X regarding the incident, trying to highlight the increasing number of such cases.
Elderly people must be educated
The entrepreneur also said that elderly people must be educated on such issues as they are vulnerable to such scams.
"Do educate your parents and folks near you. A bit of patience and anecdotes will hopefully save somone from falling into this trap."
Elderly man showed alertness, prevented scam
"My father did not give in but he did panic. For those 5 minutes, it felt like a distant possibility that something like this could have happened. Rational thought goes out of mind quickly when such things happen to someone you hold dear," said the entrepreneur, underlining how his father did not giving in to the spam caller.
Mumbai Police and netizens comment
Mumbai Police also took note and posted, "@shekharrishabh8 Request you to report the matter at your nearest police station for further support."
"+92 is the ISD code for Pakistan, so it's clear that its a scam. Its great that your father did not panic and give in, these tele scams are growing rampant," said another user.
"You are the 2nd person I've heard of in the last week itself who faced this scam. This scam plays on so many levels," a user commented.
"Job offer, courier delivery, asking loan disguised as your contact, & now these Scammers showing more creativity than Bollywood these days," another user commented.
