Don’t fall prey to customer care

KOCHI: When a payment app gets stuck, our first instinct is to call up customer care and vent. Searching Google for customer care service number might seem like the obvious first step. However, experts are now warning against this as fraudsters have put out fake web pages that claim to be PhonePe and Google Pay customer service to dupe users seeking help after facing issues with the transaction. 

A Kochiite recently lost nearly `27,500 from his bank after contacting the ‘customer care’ to rectify an issue with the PhonePe app on his mobile phone. Though the victim suspected foul play while he was answering the queries from the other end, the fraudsters had managed to transfer the amount from his SBI account by then. Police have launched a detailed probe into the complaint registered at Central Police Station in the city.  

“When I faced an error, I contacted the bank, who said there was nothing wrong from their side. They directed us to contact the application’s customer care for further support. When I Googled the contact details, a seemingly authentic page showed us. I rang up the number (07074083780) and a customer care executive picked up,” said Shajahan K, the complainer. 

“When I raised the query in English, he asked me to talk in Hindi. When I did, he asked me to open the app and key in certain numbers so that he can run a test on the app and check for the error. I had intuition on some foul play and simultaneously checked the account. I noticed two transactions debiting `22,508 and `4,998. When I went back and checked the numbers they wanted me to enter, I noticed that these two figures were in it. I immediately disconnected the call and changed the password of my application. We received calls from the number again, but didn’t pick up,” he added.

FAKE HELP
According to police authorities, they found plenty of us fraudulent web pages pretending to be Google Py, PhonePe customer support services on Google. “A page shows 855-492-5538 as Google Pay customer service number. It’s also surprising that these fake pages are listed first in Google search,” said a cyber-crime police officer. Cybersecurity expert and member of Data Security Council of India Manu Zacharia said the fraudsters are using algorithms to put their web pages on the first page of the search results. “This is a trick to convince the people about the page’s authenticity. We should not fall for this,” he added.