Nithin Kamath, the billionaire founder, and CEO of Zerodha, has turned to social media to alert people about a new fraud in which scammers utilize your phone as if it were an urgent call to obtain personal information, including bank account information and one-time passwords.
 
"A stranger approaches you and asks to use your phone to make an emergency call. Most well-meaning people would probably hand over their phone. But this is a new scam," Kamath wrote on X and shared a video produced by Zerodha explaining how the scammers operate. "From intercepting your OTPs to draining your bank accounts, scammers can cause serious damage without you even realizing it."

According to the video, fraudsters can alter the phone's settings so that calls and messages—including bank alerts—are routed to their number, or they can download new applications or open ones that are already installed on their phone while feigning to use it for a call. Scammers can use this information to access your bank account, generate OTPs, and carry out unauthorized activities. Additionally, they are able to alter your passwords.

"You won't see anything unusual happening. No obvious signs of tampering, which is what makes it so dangerous... You won't realize what's happening until it's too late," Rajneil R Kamath, founder of Saksham Senior, a platform for online safety, said.

Scammers also tend to target people who are less comfortable with technology or people who seem distracted.

Zerodha advises against giving your phone to strangers in order to safeguard oneself from these kinds of frauds. If someone approaches you with such a request, put the phone on speaker and offer to dial the number for them. Make sure your phone's call and message forwarding feature is turned off, Kamath continued.
 
 
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Phone Call Scam

SIBY JEYYA

16/01/2025 12:08 PM