Ep #8 | Festive & Wedding Season Scams You MUST Avoid |Fake Deals & OTP Fraud | Man VS Scam

Man Vs Scam

The episode explores the significant rise in scams during the festive season, specifically targeting the period from Diwali to Christmas. Ho

Key takeaways

• Scammers use the 'request' feature in UPI apps to trick users into entering their PIN, which debits money instead of receiving it.
• Typosquatting involves creating fake domains like 'Flip C-A-R-T' to mimic legitimate brands like Amazon or Flipkart during sales.

Main topics

• UPI and Payment Fraud
• Typosquatting and Fake Domains

Notable quotes

If you really want to give money to scammers, just reach out to me.

Conclusion

Vigilance and proactive digital hygiene are essential to navigating th

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) IVM Speaker 2 (0:03) Life may be anything, the first thing is very important. First memory, first love, first heartbreak, first work. Friends, I am Gopal Dutt and this is my first podcast. First with Gopal Dutt, which will be released on IVM Pop. I will talk to those people who are in their work, whose name we all know. So come to the YouTube IVM Pop channel or wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen to our podcast. Meet interesting people. Speaker 3 (0:51) Hi, I'm with Karshika and I have... Speaker 1 (0:54) Rajesh Singh. Speaker 3 (0:55) Try to be a little more excited. Anyway, I'm very happy because festive season is here and so are the scammers and so are the deals. So, I focus on deals and I'm here for you to focus on scams. Today, we're going to uncover some of the scams that happens during festive season and has happened over the last few months and would continue until at least Christmas. So, please be safe. Hear us out. We will tell you a lot more interesting stories. Speaker 1 (1:21) Yes, festive season is on and so are the scammers ready. So you will see that the scams are going to jump 40 to 50%. They are ready out there to empty your pockets, save your money and celebrate your festivals safely. And Speaker 3 (1:34) if you really want to give money to scammers, just reach out to me. I'm not the scammer, but I could use some of the deals and free gifts. Thank you. Speaker 1 (1:44) So tell me, how do you differentiate between, you know, receive and pay request on UPI? Because that is a method, you were talking before the episode that scammers are using this method now. That they send you a link which actually, and they tell you that you are going to receive money, but actually they deduct. How does that happen? Speaker 3 (2:01) So let me tell you. Speaker 1 (2:04) Happened with you? Speaker 3 (2:05) No, not really. Speaker 1 (2:07) How did that happen? No, Speaker 3 (2:08) not really, but really. Speaker 3 (2:12) So from a paying perspective, first, crib and cry that you have to pay to someone. And second is you have a UPI code that you have to set anyway, right? So when you're paying someone, you have to enter the amount and then it will redirect you to a place where you will have to enter the UPI pin that you've set up. On your app. Right? Yeah, on the app. And that is how you pay. But when you have to receive the money, you don't have to. If I am, if when after this episode, when you decide to pay me, I don't have to put in my pin. Okay. You are the one who I can make a request, but you are the one who's supposed to add, follow the same process of adding the amount. like thousand lakhs and maybe crores. Speaker 1 (2:59) IVM podcast, you're listening to a request. Send a link, please. You just have to install an IVM app, which we are making right now. Speaker 3 (3:11) So we were talking about all the money that you're going to give me. So all you have to do is add your pin. But me as a receiver is not supposed to add any... Pin that is for my account because why will it be debited? It's simple. Logic is simple. When you go to the ATM, when you go through the whole process of inserting the card and then you insert your pin. But have you ever put your pin to take money? From someone else's account, from someone else's account. In the sense if somebody is Speaker 1 (3:48) sending money to you, then you don't Speaker 3 (3:50) need Speaker 1 (3:50) to Speaker 3 (3:51) put a pin. Speaker 1 (3:51) Yes, absolutely not. When you have to pay, then you have to put a pin. Now you know the process? Yes. Speaker 3 (3:55) You're good to give me the money then? I Speaker 1 (3:57) have Speaker 3 (3:57) learnt it, yes. You're good, okay. Speaker 1 (3:58) I'm making that app for you now. I Speaker 3 (4:01) know the apps where I can make the request. To facilitate payments, Speaker 1 (4:04) you need to just, there's a small app, you can download it, it will facilitate. Speaker 3 (4:09) But you know what, let me give you a recent example. During Ganesh Shaturdi's time, there's a businessman in Andheri. There were a lot of... online shops, sweet shop shops, right? People are as lazy as there is a crowd in sweet shop shops. So he found this website and this shop, something like that. And he ordered approximately 4000 sweet. Once he sent the money, he never got the delivery. Then he started following up. Then this guy said, okay, you know what? I'm going to send you the code and refund your money. He said the code is 29485. Okay. And the code was not OTP. He asked him to enter that code on Google Pay. Speaker 1 (4:54) Oh, God. Speaker 3 (4:55) That is the amount that got debited. Because he's not saying 29,485. He's saying 29485. Oh, damn. Right? And that is how you receive. And this goes back to the question what you asked, right? That do we have to put a PIN to receive? No. Speaker 1 (5:11) Again, he didn't get any sweets. Speaker 3 (5:12) He didn't Speaker 1 (5:12) get Speaker 3 (5:12) any sweets, he lost Speaker 1 (5:14) his Speaker 3 (5:14) money. And imagine he had a friend who gave him 45,000 rupees more. In totality, he lost about 1.3 odd lakhs. Speaker 1 (5:25) Oh goodness. Speaker 3 (5:26) For what sweet? It sounds like a very expensive sweet to me. Yes, the Speaker 1 (5:30) most expensive sweet per kg. Speaker 3 (5:32) But imagine like these are very nuances of little things, right? Something that you and I use on a day-to-day basis. Speaker 1 (5:38) Right. Speaker 3 (5:38) In this situation, I mean, for our parents to know, for our friends to know, that there are things which are just common sense. Speaker 1 (5:47) I think what we should do is we should ask users and our audience to... at least tell one scam story to their parents and their friends. Speaker 3 (5:57) Because Speaker 1 (5:58) if you tell a story, you're aware. Next time somebody sends somebody a request like this, they will say, oh, I heard a story like this on IVM podcast, Man Vs. Scam. Speaker 3 (6:09) Remember Speaker 1 (6:09) this. Nice. Nice, subtle Speaker 3 (6:11) integration, I must tell you. Very subtle. I Speaker 1 (6:14) know. Not so subtle now. Not so Speaker 3 (6:16) subtle now. Oh, it's because I highlighted it. Yes. Okay, so you know what? I get so many parcels as bringing back to me. Speaker 1 (6:24) Because Speaker 3 (6:25) why not? Speaker 1 (6:28) That's why you're Scamster's favorite. So Speaker 3 (6:31) this entire week, right, I had at least minimum two parcels coming in. So many. And I can send you a picture. We have like a whole stack of parcels at home of Amazon and different apps. Now, the thing is that, of course, Speaker 2 (6:44) they're Speaker 3 (6:44) calling me for OTPs. It is... And I think I had covered this in the past that my authenticators are my dogs because they bark anytime someone's on the door. So if I ask the OTP guy that are you really at home? And he will say yes. And then my dogs are barking in the background. That means yes. But not everyone's lucky to have dogs, right? So for those peasants and poor people, you have to be very careful of where the OTP is coming from. let's say it's coming not and a lot of them are have now started coming on like delivery shadow facts these are coming on whatsapp Speaker 1 (7:22) right Speaker 3 (7:23) so it's very important for you to know whether or not that is verified there is two folds right if it is coming from an unknown number some link is there they're asking if you have taken cash on delivery imagine someone's asking you to click a link and make the payment where you're not in front of them and you have they just have to Like, you know, put the parcel during and this goes back to the amount of shopping that we do during festive season because everyone's happy. Everyone's going to splurge money on themselves and others, if you can listen. And that is very, very scary that if you do not, if you share OTP with people, if you click on the links for payments, you have to be very careful of whether or not these are verified channels, verified, you know, business accounts on WhatsApp. Very, very critical. And the second part of this is What is it in your, when you receive a parcel, all your information is right out there, right? Right from your phone number to your address to your first name, last name, which is pretty scary. Imagine all those parcels, you're too busy taking out anything that is inside, but to dispose the thali jismein wo aata hai is so important, right? Cutting it off, it's like throwing away your debit card without cutting it. It's literally... like that because you're giving away your information to someone who's probably going to pick it up from your kachara or someplace else, Speaker 1 (8:49) right? There's a Speaker 3 (8:49) very important Speaker 1 (8:49) point you made that a lot of QR codes contain personal information. So somebody had demonstrated that if you take the boarding pass, like after we travel, we discard our boarding pass. So somebody could basically read a lot of information from the boarding passes just by scanning the QR codes. Not only that, somebody had demonstrated that By reading the QR code, they could get into PNR. From their PNR, they could get into the loyalty account or those points which airlines give you, which I don't know what happens to them. But you get those points which you can redeem. And they say that they'll upgrade you, but they never upgrade you. Poor economy class people. So it's very important, as you said, is to dispose your anything which contains your personal identity. like QR codes to dispose them very properly and to see to it that they are not left in a complete form because they can be scanned again and again. Speaker 3 (9:47) And you know what, that brings me to a point where have you seen, and maybe you have not, but my generation people, a lot of them, they just post their boarding passes on Instagram stories. Oh, I am traveling, you know, and they're... Their QR codes or... Their PNR. Yeah, yeah. Their PNR is right there. And there has been multiple times where I have... If I'm following someone and I see that, I literally tell them that just remove it or hide it, right? Yes. Just don't put it out there. But, you know, it's very interesting. So there was a Reddit story that happened where this girl was supposed to go out with her girlfriends outside. And for some reason, her friends decided that... We won't take this. But these girls went ahead and did all of that. Now the guy was so cute and actually it's a very sweet and petty thing to do. The guy saw the stories of these girls. But they had put in a boarding pass. So not just that. So what they did was, what he did, he got all the details and usually people book return tickets. He went ahead, called up the airline, cancelled their tickets. Speaker 2 (10:56) Okay. He was Speaker 3 (10:57) like, how can someone do this to my girl? Okay. And like you literally, that trip was cancelled. They did not have a return ticket. And airlines had cancelled everything because he got all the information just by those. By Speaker 1 (11:11) those P &R numbers. I mean, Speaker 3 (11:13) this is a very. cute petty revenge I would probably like if someone does it for me. But... Speaker 1 (11:18) To her. Speaker 3 (11:21) Not to me. I'm not that petty. And second, I would never post like a voting pass. Okay? Right? So, I hope I don't. Yeah. When Speaker 1 (11:31) you take selfie, it would be on your table. We'll zoom it. Speaker 3 (11:34) And... Actually, that's really... Yeah. It is possible. You pass Speaker 1 (11:39) on a lot of information in any normal pictures also. You pass on a lot of information because there would be documents lying there. There would be identity, any kind of identity which would be lying there. I remember in one particular case, we were, you know, wanting to identify somebody and we couldn't. Finally, the person was wearing something, you know, kind of this straps that you wear. On that strap, when we improved the photo again and again, we could find out the institution. From there, then that person could be located. It was some criminal or somebody. So very small cues in your identity, very small cues in your photograph can give away your location, give away where you are, give away what you're up to. Speaker 3 (12:20) Yeah. And you know what? A lot of people during Diwali, they go back home, Speaker 1 (12:24) right? Speaker 3 (12:24) And especially in Tier 1 city, a lot of people are from the other cities and they go back home. It's very important that we have seen that. to save money sometimes they are not booking from authorized websites or applications right they're going the easiest way cheapest flights available right or they're going to those places and when they reach the airport they're realizing that the ticket does not exist. Does Speaker 1 (12:48) not exist. Does not Speaker 3 (12:49) exist. So save some pennies. You just have to be so careful. It's not just like you're losing out money, but imagine not being able to go back home. Or also that when you have entered or gone to a website that probably has malware in it. Like it's just little things about yourself. You're putting your data out there. You're putting