‘Always check bank acc’: Bengaluru woman warns of UPI SMS scam, Netizens react, ‘Jamtara in real life’
A Bengaluru woman warns about a scam where a caller sends excess money and requests a refund, urging people to be cautious with financial SMS fraud
In recent years, technology has transformed the way we live and do business. However, along with these advancements has come the increasing risk of online fraud. Now a Bengaluru woman has alerted people on matters related to the UPI SMS scam.
A user on X named Aditi Chopra who is an entrepreneur in Bengaluru shared details of the scam and said that when she was busy on a office call, she got a call from an elderly man who informed that he needed to send money to her father. However, due to some problem, he said that her father requested to send it to her instead.
She wrote, “Was busy on an office call when this elderly sounding guy calls me and says, ‘Aditi beta, papa ko paise bhejne the par unko ja nahi rahe toh unhone bola aapko bhejdu. Beta check karo aapka number yahi hai na’. Said out my number aloud and immediately I see this SMS pop up in the exact same format as any bank credit SMS would look like.”
“I first received an SMS mentioning a ₹10,000 credit, then a ₹30,000 credit, all while he was on the call. Then, he suddenly gets all worked up and is like, ‘beta, mujhe toh ₹3,000 hi bhejne the par galti se ₹30,000 bhej diye, pls aap baaki paise wapas bhejde mai doctor sahaab ke yaha khada hu, unko dena hai paise’,” she added.
Further adding, she said, “The kind of urgency he was creating by crying out loud that he sent extra money, is at the doctor’s doorstep, sending UPI IDs to send the remaining amt back to etc. This is where I believe their real game lies. One could faulter and give in but Ik my dad, he over explains everything and triple checks in matters of money, whatever be the amount lol. He would have called beforehand and given me more context than needed.”
She then added when she saw the number from the where she received the SMS was not a company ID but a normal phone number. “And then the obvious, one look into the SMSes and you could see that they are from a 10-digit phone number, not a branded company ID. Of course, when I called back in a minute after checking my accounts, I was blocked.”
Warning people, she said, “Always check your actual bank account on a separate device and never go by any SMSes. That system is very easily gameable.”
Her post on X went viral and garnered 231.9K views and gained a lot of comments with people agreeing and sharing their story on the scam.
Check some of the comments on the post
One user wrote, “Dad got into a similar scam. He actually sent the money. The msgs had company tags not normal phone numbers but then that guy is a skilled scammer and had 3 other scams on the same day. stay safe!”
Another user added, “Exactly the same thing happened to me. I knew the moment he called because my paa would never give my number before letting me know. But I went ahead and had a conversation with him.”
“I got a call from Lucknow customs today. Jamtara in real life,” some other user wrote.
“This is the most perfect scam message I’ve ever read, hardly any issues in the message. Only checking the sender can help,” one more user said.
Some other wrote, “My dad got scammed like this. He sent 15k. We had to go to cybercrime and get money back.”