Indian citizens on Monday, May 8, were cautioned over a spike of scam calls emanating from numbers registered in foreign countries, especially Kenya.
A number of Indian media outlets including Firstpost and India Today reported that the intensity of spam calls, mostly made through Whatsapp calls and video chat options, towards citizens of the Asian country had risen sharply over recent months.
Most of the calls came from phone numbers registered in Ethiopia (+251), Malaysia (+60), Indonesia (+62), Kenya (+254) and Vietnam (+84).
Reports indicated that the call did not necessarily originate from the country of origin where their codes were registered.
Instead, a number of unscrupulous agencies had set up shop in cities either within Indian borders or outside and sell international numbers primarily for Whatsapp calls.
Some of the victims argued that the calls, which appeared from the blue, were made by callers promising jobs to unsuspecting users.
In the beginning, the scammers will offer low-paying tasks like offering reviews of restaurants at a rate and then, eventually, make the first payment to the victims.
When the victims learn to trust the scammers, who often claim to be part of a larger and more reputable company, they get lured into a bigger scam that sees them lose a bigger amount of money.
In Kenya, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has repeatedly unearthed scammers out to fleece job seekers by luring them in with good-paying work-from-home gigs.
An overriding characteristic of the scam is always the perpetrator's insatiable appetite for payments before the applicants can secure an interview.
How to Avoid Scammers
Whatsapp users are advised to avoid picking up calls from unknown numbers for their safety. In case they choose to pick, individuals should be careful not to give out their private information that may aid the hackers access their mobile phones or bank accounts.
Also, the True Caller App, which accords mobile phone users a chance to identify registration details of unidentified calls, has developed a feature that allows Whatsapp user identify calls and video chats from unidentified numbers.
The feature is still in beta mode.
