Some common complaints that people have been facing are losing their hard-earned money to scammers almost every day. Scammers use phishing, which is a method they employ to acquire private information, as a common and well-known scam. They pretend be other reputable firms such as banks, governments, or other organizations. A survey revealed that India was hit by 79 million phishing attacks in 2023. 

An online scam stole Rs. 68 lakhs from Aadish, a 39-year-old engineer from Bengaluru. Tech worker Aadish posted a second -hand bed on OLX at Rs 15000. Later, one day, an unknown person called him by the name of Rohit Sharma and told him that he wanted to purchase the bed. 

Sharma asked Aadish for the UPI ID and said that they could then pay digitally. In a short while, Sharma said he had issues transferring money to Aadish’s UPI ID and asked Aadish to send Rs 5 so that he could give a guarantee of a quick refund to Aadish. Aadish  fell into the trap of transferring Rs 5 into the UPI ID that Sharma provided him with and getting Rs 10 in return. This formed a pattern as Sharma convinced Aadish to send  larger amounts of money ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 under various pretexts.  

Sharma later fabricated that he accidentally credited Aadish’s account with Rs 30,000. After that, Sharma shared the OTP and asked Aadish to click the link and get his money back from him. Unfortunately, it led to a scam, and Aadish lost lakhs of rupees from his account. 

TRAI’s Strategic Meeting to Address Telecom Fraud

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has called for a meeting of the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCoR), which comprises the IRDAI, the PFRDA, the RBI, the SEBI, and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s (MoCIT) Ministry of Cultures and Information Technology (MeitY) in consultation on possible measures that would help counter spam calls and frauds involving telecom resources. 

As per the Ministry of Communication, other participants in the meeting were JCoR from IRDAI, PFRDA, RBI, SEBI, MoCA, MeitY, and TRAI and special Invitees were Department of Tourism and Ministry of Health. The JCoR contains an opportunity for coordinating work on the regulations and the evaluation of the regulators in the newly formulated new world. 

Anil Kumar Lahoti, the chairman of TRAI, emphasized in his speech the need for a single strategy in addition to the efforts of telecom operators to combat spam calls and messages. He urged authorities to think about and take actions such as having callback numbers, OTT links, URLs, and APKs in SMS messages whitelisted; transferring current telemarketers who make promotional calls to the 140 series within the DLT platform; and requiring full disclosure where telemarketers are in the PE-TM chain. 

Proposed Measures to Combat Spam and Fraud

Whitelisting URLs, APKs, OTT Links, and Callback Numbers in SMS:

Whitelisting means that it allows only specific Web addresses, Android app installation files, OTT links, and phone numbers for SMS message usage in order to ensure that it is safe and secure to use. 

Migrating Current Telemarketers to the 140 Series on the DLT Platform:

In order to improve regulation and transparency, this entails blocking telemarketers to a specific phone number range, the 140 series, and using a DLT system to track and record promotional calls. 

To avoid check and balance issues and fraud, there is a need to register all parties that are involved in the telemarketing business, which include PEs and TMs.  

Challenges in Small Towns: The Jamtara Phenomenon

Cyber security experts say that it is unlike in metro areas where police departments keep track of phishing crimes and raid perpetrators. Mostly phishing scams originate in small towns where the more police are either unable or not inclined to apprehend these thugs. The police only came to know about Jamtara when the amount of money being demanded, or the number of cases was beyond any measure. 

This infamous town in India today has organized crime syndicates running well-equipped phishing conspiracies inside Jamtara. These organizations use various techniques of deceiving people into sharing their money and other personnel details which is later used to defraud people. 

The regular methodology includes phone calls or text messages that seem to be originating from banks or governments, among others. We are regularly aware that scam victims are mainly forced to share personal details like account numbers, passwords, or OTPs. 

Scammers in Jamtara use modern technologies to accomplish their operations. Others reach many targets by employing recorded messages, call centers, and fake phone numbers. 

The heightened incidences of phishing and other online frauds are a major concern that has impacted many people in India. Fraudsters are using digital platforms to defraud people of their money and other details, which makes them financially vulnerable. This indicates it is key for measures to be taken in enhancing the security protocols, increasing awareness among the people, and ensuring that there are better laws put in place to curb the problem. Thus, the government, technology firms, and police must join efforts to combat these threats and protect people from Internet scams.