CERT-In Advisory CIAD-2009-39
Fraudulent “Prize Winner” Call Scams and Vishing Attacks

Original issue date: August 13, 2009

Description

In the past few weeks CERT-In has received reports that mobile phone subscribers in India are targeted with fraudulent “Prize Winner Scam” calls purporting to be from mobile service providers.

In these types of phone frauds the fraudster pretends to be representative of popular brand (Mobile Service Provider, Financial Institutions etc) and targets innocent users to divulge their sensitive information and later trick them to pay the money using several direct or indirect means.

One such recently reported scenario is described below:

These fraudsters pretend to be representatives of victim's mobile service provider and misinform the victim that his/her mobile number has won a large amount of money in some lottery. Fraudsters generally give missed calls to the victim and waits for his response. If responded, the victim is asked to enter a key sequence *#06# on to their mobiles which displays mobile's IMEI ( International Mobile
Equipment Identity) number. Fraudster then convinces that the displayed IMEI number is a “Winning Number” and it is required to claim the prize money. Victim is then convinced to disclose the IMEI number over phone.

Victim is then informed that in order to claim the “Prize Money” he must call some News Channel office to announce his winning. Fraudster gives another phone number to the victim, claiming that the number belongs to the News Channel.

Victim is persuaded to make a call to the provided number where he
is tricked to disclose sensitive information like Name, Address, Voter ID Card number, Bank account, Credit card information etc. As a fee to claim the “Prize Money” the victim is convinced to purchase some cash vouchers/recharge coupons of popular services like DTH,
Prepaid Mobile etc. Subsequently the victim is asked to read out the cash voucher/recharge coupon number to the fraudsters over phone.

It is suspected that the disclosed cash voucher/recharge coupon numbers are then sold to the retailers for money. The sensitive information obtained may be used for conducting other scams.

More information regarding such kind of scams may be found here


Recommendations:

• Do not respond to any Call from a number where the person on the other end claims to be calling from the service provider and asks to dial a number to get some prize money.
• Avoid responding to suspicious Missed Calls from unknown numbers.
• Do not respond to any SMS from unknown sources prompting to call on a number.
• Never disclose any sensitive information like Voter ID Number, Bank account, Credit card information etc. to unknown callers
• In case of suspicious calls, report the same to the concerned service provider/bank.
  

Disclaimer

The information provided herein is on "as is" basis, without warranty of any kind.

Contact Information

Phone: +91-11-24368572

Postal address

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
Electronics Niketan
6, C.G.O. Complex
New Delhi-110 003