So I was booking my tickets to Varanasi through via.com, 18/20 flights were confirmed so I immediately raised a complaint on Twitter asking them for the reason coz obviously I don't want to get into the mess of rebooking at the last minute.
So I dropped a tweet on their page, they asked me for the details and I provided them with the same immediately,
In less than 10 mins I got a call from an unknown number "9717465555" Truecaller said HDFC so I picked it and these guys said they are from HDFC and they handle the transactions of via.com and due to technical issues they are unable to book the ticket so they will have to refund the money.
Naturally, I said okay, knew something was fishy but Truecaller said HDFC so 90-10 sure that it wasn't a fraud call as the timing was perfect.
He asked for all the bank details, UPI ID and all necessary info for carrying the refund. He tried several times but there was some " technical error " when he was trying to automate something I did not understand.
He told me to share the bottom message as and when I received it,
I did that, but, something didn't work. we went on talking back and forth for 20 mins and he wanted to try some new method. He sent me a link from surveymonkey ,
and casually asked me for my card details,
Well, the 90-10 doubt turned into a 10-90, meaning, I felt it was a scam but not 100% sure too coz you don't hear these kinds of things happening often. Well to be cautious, I set up a safety net. (90% is not enough for me) and altered the limit on the card to 1 Rupee more than what I had already spent.
**Making all future transactions invalid till I change it back.
**
Since he said he wasn't receiving the messages/codes I sent him he wanted me to install an app called "SMS forwarder" so I did. I added his number so the messages I receive, he receives too through the app.
So he initiated the code again Trust me the code looks odd enough by itself (Couldn't totally call this a scam coz I have seen these codes in messages before that all UPI registered mobile numbers send during transit/verification process via UPI network, I thought it was something similar so let it be coz my safety net was still on)
Once he received all messages from my phone, he initiated a transaction of INR 25774, Roughly 350 dollars, I immediately asked him what the hell he's doing. Immidiently 4 continuous transactions were attempted within seconds and that's when you know some kind of a bot is involved. I had dealt with a similar bot a long time ago so I know it when I see one.
So I started to yell at him, He was like "sorry sir this is the part of the process bla bla bla in broken English " I flipped it. From just yelling I started to use words that were out of the dictionary and in the most local unpleasent way. He started to freak out and didn't understand what was wrong and he apologized so he can do it again with a reduced amount of 15K. I obviously get the messages of the same and he was getting my OTPs too now. But he couldn't take a dime out of m credit card because of that beautiful safety net I had laid out during the call.
In short, he freaked out that things weren't going according to his plan and gave it to his "senior manager" and he too heard some very beautiful words from me and dropped the call immediately.
What he doesn't know is that in between all of this,
I had quite a good idea of who / where this was coming from, though his accent, his approximate age, probable physic-based on tonality, his personal WhatsApp number & survey-monkey ID. I had enough details to hand it over to the cybercrime. To top it all I had the entire conversation recorded and once he freaked out and cut the call I immediately dropped a tweet saying what had just happened and sent the data to the cybercrime department, HDFC bank he claimed to be from, Via.com and Bangalore police department to start the investigation.
If he doesn't get caught with all these details, he will at least have to go under the radar for quite some time and I am happy about it. If he gets caught I am visiting him to laugh at his stupidity.
Last but not the least, during the previous encounter I came across this bot that was built beautifluly, simple but works like a charm.
So when a scam transaction is successful it automatically doubles the amount.
S transaction - SUCCESSFUL - 2X the amount
S transaction - UNSUCCESSFUL - 0.5x the amount
this would repeat till the entire account is wiped clean. In a matter of minutes, you can lose it all.
So just be careful when you use cards debit or credit doesn't matter.
Stay safe and whoop people who try to act smarter! LOL
Good day!
I Will be posting better content soon, was just in a funny mood to share this incident so forgive me if I am technically wrong somewhere haha