Callers beware! Over 31,000 fake customer care numbers are out there to scam you

• 88% of the fake customer care numbers were distributed via Facebook advertisements.
• Entities in the banking and finance sectors were the primary targets of impersonation.
• There have been instances where a customer lost as much as ₹16 lakh due to a fake customer care number, CloudSEK said.

When we face any difficulty regarding a product or service, we tend to automatically reach out to the customer service department for a resolution. However, fake customer service calling numbers set up by fraudsters to deceive customers are thriving, as per a report by CloudSEK, an AI company that predicts cyberthreats.

XVigil’s (CloudSEK’s risk monitoring platform) Fake Customer Care module has flagged 31,179 such fraudulent numbers, with many of them having been active for over 2 years. The findings show that about 56% (i.e. 17,285) of these were Indian numbers, while the rest were non-Indian. Further, 80% of the Indian numbers were found to be valid and still operational.

Analysis of the content present on the source domains associated with each number also showed that entities in the banking and finance sectors (39.4%) were the primary targets of impersonation, followed by those in the telecommunication(31.2%) and healthcare sectors(9.9%).

This is an apt modern-day phishing technique, which builds around the trust created in solving customer queries and deceives people into revealing sensitive information, allowing the fraudsters to steal user data.

In its report, CloudSEK researchers have analysed a sample of around 20,000 Indian mobile numbers used by fraudsters to run such customer care scams. It found that none of the major telecom carriers, which have vast network connectivity, have been spared by scammers.

Social media channels: Scamsters’ vehicle of choice

Such fake numbers are disseminated predominantly by social media channels. About 88% (15,271) of the fake customer care numbers were distributed via Facebook advertisements, posts, profiles, and pages. Out of the remaining 12% of the numbers, Twitter emerged as the most popular distribution medium, accounting for 6.2% of the total traffic. Twitter was followed by Google.

Despite Facebook claiming to have taken down close to 2 billion fake accounts per quarter, scammers continue to flood Facebook with fake profiles and pages. Social media continues to be the preferred medium for scammers to trick people because it allows them to reach a large user base in a short period.

To create an impression of authenticity, scammers frequently include a brief introduction and links to their social media accounts or posts alongside the counterfeit customer support numbers. However, a closer examination of these links reveals that they typically lead users to fake domains and fraudulent Whatsapp or Telegram accounts; and sometimes even the email addresses are fake. Scammers leverage social media accounts to lure customers to call on fake customer numbers, visit phishing sites and send emails from their personal accounts, thus compromising their email IDs.

The unwary users search for customer care numbers and may end up calling a fake customer care number. When customers call these fake call centres, the scamsters use this opportunity to retrieve financial information, OTP, etc., from aggrieved customers via social engineering methods – which refers to techniques used illegitimately to manipulate people to perform certain actions or reveal specific information.

Generally, scammers try to leverage impersonation and the fear factor to collect money from the victims. Thereafter, the threat actors gain access to the victim’s bank account and purchase gift cards, etc, or transfer the amount to another account. There have been instances where a customer lost as much as ₹16 lakh due to a wrong google search leading to a fake customer care number, CloudSEK said.

Fake customer care numbers have been thriving under the cyber radar purely because people tend to be ignorant while engaging with customer care numbers.