Missed Call Mystery !

[Russellhni]

On 4th Mar 2016 at about 9.30 am, I received a miss call from 37069797624. I did not notice it then. But about 20 minutes later, I observed the call in the missed call registry.


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Generally, I ignore such unknown numbers and leave them , without calling back. I am neither a computer wizard nor a techno savvy, but My logic is quite simple . If a person really wants to contact you , he will definitely call you several times. He will nag you till you pick up!

However, here, one thing was intriguing, the timing, morning, unusual time for marketing nuisance. The tele marketers, atleast , most of them , must be brushing their teeth at 9.30 am and too early for them to be at the receiving end !

I was vacillating. But you can never escape fate :( “If anything can go wrong -- it will.” Murphy law came into play ; So I rang back 37069797624.

Unfortunately, at that material time, I was not knowing the call is from a foreign origin.( From LITHUANIA ISD Code +370. )

I was blindly following a famous author, Sudie Back who said
“Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you: you must acquire it.”

My bad luck, The call materialized, some lady voice in a gibberish. I thought it was a wrong number and disconnected. But not before the damage was done. I was charged Rs.45 (Prepaid AirTel mobile) .

You know now, It is a spam. a potential phishing, something like a Nigerian Scam. So again following Sudie Back on curiosity, I googled. I got this !:thumbsup:

Here are the details of the scam, simplified:

They call you, but immediately hang up. You see a missed call. You call back. They charge you for the call, and for each minute they can keep you on the line.

Like many a ruse, this one relies on hitting many, many potential targets at once. The scammer sets up a computer to call thousands of numbers per hour — because for every 99 people who follow their gut and don’t call weird numbers, there’s 1 person who will. It’s all about making mass sweeps and finding the exceptions.

The trick?

They only let the call ring once before it automatically hangs up. One ring is enough for the number to show up on your missed call screen, but just short enough that you’re not likely to answer it in time (which keeps the call from fully connecting and thus keeps the scammer from having to front for any long distance fees.

How To Avoid Gettin’ Scammed:

If you don’t recognize a number, don’t call’em back.
If you really want to call back, Google the number first. Check the area code to make sure it’s not long-distance. Check the full number, too; in many cases, you’ll find a page full of results saying “Do not call! It’s a scam!”
If you’re an Android fan, try to get on a device running Android 4.4 (KitKat). It has a built-in number identification system, and it works quite well for at least identifying legitimate, non-scammy phone numbers as safe to call.


Last, but not least, Check your phone bill for sketchy charges. Your carrier knows aaaall about scams like this, and will generally reverse the charge if you complain.

I complained to Airtel and awaiting their reply.

Some BSNL prepaid customers complains of huge balance reduction after making calls to no starting with +246, 239, 234 and 960. If you get missed call from some international number originating from Maldives, Nigeria, Diego Garcia and Sao Tome

Please do not try to call back.

NB : I wrote to Airtel about this scam. Within 30 minutes, I got back Rs.45 /- re credited to my prepaid mobile account. ! Small solace !


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.... To continue ...scroll down : My turmoils not over :banghead: Sequel II[/SIZE][/SIZE]

[pavalamani pragasam]

OMG! :shock:

[Russellhni]

I remembered a proverb , after falling prey to another ruse :
" If you Fool me Once - It is a shame on you ! But if you fool me twice, It is shame on Me ! "


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Yes ! You are right ! I was fooled again ! Shame on me ! This time the missed call was from 99 -4404 130 112 99 EQUATORIAL GUINEA on
9th Mar 2016 about 9.30 am . Same methodology. Single ring technique :) I know, like the palm of my hand, it was a scam.

Any how, Is it not some great man said “ When you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave” .

I wanted to be brave, Try and Investigate, if there is a phishing scam involved in this missed call !.

So, with a “To do or Not to do” dilemma ticking in the background, I rang back. I know it is Foolish but a brave action.

The same result. Same gibberish. Sort of recorded voices! No one was trying to phish me for any confidential data or financial information. It looked , The whole idea was just to confuse me and keep me on the hook.

So I moved on to damage control , disconnected the call immediately and this time, I was a bit faster and charged just Rs.20/- !

I raised a complaint to Airtel about this spam. I also made a request to Airtel to debar my prepaid mobile number from making international calls. They flatly refused, said it is a basic or default service, hence cannot be debarred.

Now my questions to the forum are these !

People in Telecom or friends in knowledge circle, please clarify for the benefit of the forum and friends !

• Is it that I am being targeted, because I called back once? But the calls are from different countries? Is that also fake ?
• Customer like me are the suckers, but who is really benefited? The individuals of the call origin , do they get paid. If so by whom?
• Contrary to my belief, there does not seem to be any phishing attempt. Is it correct? Or , as usual, I am wrong?
• Is it possible, even remotely, the telecom carriers, both the countries carriers split the loot ? Will giants like Airtel /BSNL resort to that cheap tricks, like Salami ? But considering the large base of mobile customers, it is a tempting opportunity .






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Here I think it is worth to mention about Salami Logic (Salami technique or Salami Slicing) , an innovative way of looting gullible people.

Salami slicing (courtesy Wikipedia) : In information security, a salami attack is a series of minor attacks that together results in a larger attack. Computers are ideally suited to automating this type of attack.

An example of salami slicing, also known as penny shaving, is the fraudulent practice of stealing money repeatedly in extremely small quantities, usually by taking advantage of rounding to the nearest cent (or other monetary unit) in financial transactions. It would be done by always rounding down, and putting the fractions of a cent into another account. The idea is to make the change small enough that any single transaction will go undetected.

[pavalamani pragasam]

This recalls my experience in the US where I had been staying in my daughter's house for 6 months. I was not using my airtel mobile connection throughout my stay there and all my incoming calls were expressly asked to be made to my daughter's numbers. Of course, I was using whatsapp. Frequently my mobile was ringing in the dead of night. The calls were from the same number. In spite of daughter's warning out of curiosity I received the call once when it came in my waking hours. Some Hindi talk I heard and I immediately cut off. Daughter said after doing some investigating they were some fake calls from Mumbai . I too was charged for that nuisance call. But I learnt my lesson!