Cyber crimes continue to rise in Coimbatore … If you get a call like this, don’t fall for it!
- by David
- Jan 06,2025
We are familiar with few interactive voice responses provided by telecommunication service providers. Voice used in responses like ‘The Number You Have Dialed is Currently Busy. Please Try Again Later’ and ‘The Person You are Calling is Speaking to Someone Else,’ are memorable to us.
But spammers are now using such voices in their spam calls, and what is more scarier is that these pre-recorded voice calls claim to be from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The pre-recorded voice call tells the listener that the mobile number holder has used this phone number abnormally, hence services will be suspended. It would then ask the user to press 1 for more information and 2 to speak to customer care executive.
The crooks behind these spam calls aim to extract personal information from their targets. TRAI has said that it does not call mobile phone users directly and has urged users to stay vigilant against fraudulent callers posing as officials. It has also advised users to treat any calls, messages, or notices claiming to be from TRAI with threats of disconnection as potential fraud attempts.
It is better to report the incident immediately to your Mobile Service Provider by calling it through the customer care number so that they can know about the incident and also block the spammer's further attempts to reach you. At most times, these calls come from international numbers.
Cyber crimes rising in Coimbatore!
In 2022, a total of 4,516 cyber crime incidents were reported to the Coimbatore City Police’s Cyber Crime section. The figure rose to 6,396 and 8254 in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Due to these scams, Rs.13 crore was lost in 2022 and Rs.81 lakh was recovered. In 2022 the loss was Rs.48 crore, and the police recovered Rs.2.2 crore.
Out of the 8,254 cyber crimes reported last year, 5,945 are money related. The loss in 2024 was Rs.94 crore and the recovered amount was Rs.11.16 crore. A total of Rs.49.89 crore that was swindled by crooks from victims has been frozen, thanks to the police department.
The cyber crime section of the Coimbatore City Police Department reportedly get around 30-50 complaints per day and most of it are cyber money scam related.
