A 33-year-old woman from a gated community near Lakshmi Mills junction in Coimbatore is the latest victim of the courier scam, widely known as ‘FedEx courier scam’, in which 70 people from the city lost ₹5.67 crore till June 6 this year.
Like others, the woman received a call from an unknown number (9243065127) on May 30, claiming to be from the office of FedEx company. She was told that a parcel had arrived illegally, using her Aadhaar card, in Mumbai. When the woman denied having sent it, she was asked to come to Mumbai cybercrime office. She was also given an option to speak to the cybercrime and other officials via Skype. The fraudsters managed to get her bank account details and fraudulently withdrew ₹98,126.
Cybercrime officials in Coimbatore city said people falling victims to the courier scam, in which fraudsters misuse the name of FedEx, remains unabated.
As per statistics provided by the Coimbatore city cybercrime police, they received 137 complaints regarding the courier scam this year alone. Of these, 70 complainants lost money while 67 managed to protect their hard earned income and reported the attempt to the police.
According to cybercrime officials, the scam starts with an interactive voice response (IVR) call from an unknown number. One such call received by this reporter started with an IVR: “Hello, this is an emergency notification from Customs. You have a problem with an air parcel. For detailed information, press 9”.
“Once we press the number, someone posing as Customs officer will tell the targeted person that the parcel or courier linked to him or her has been found with narcotic substances, multiple passports or cash. Later, they contact the victim over Skype video call platform. Multiple persons impersonating officials from cybercrime, DRI, ED, crime branch, etc., will grill the victim. They finally ask for bank account details of the victim on the pretext of a verification from RBI and siphon off the money from the account,” said cybercrime inspector P.A. Arun.
According to him, the fraudsters follow the same modus operandi but impersonate various officials.
“The public are advised to avoid such calls from unknown numbers and report the matter to the police. These people operate the scam through devices having IP addresses tracing to foreign countries, it is a challenging task to find and nab them,” he said.
Of the ₹5.67 crore lost by 70 victims from Coimbatore city this year, the police managed to recover and return ₹47.31 lakh from the fraudsters by freezing their bank accounts. The police are hopeful of recovering another ₹1 crore of defrauded money.
A statement from FedEx said it does not request personal information through unsolicited phone calls, mail, or email for goods being shipped or held, unless requested or initiated by customers. “If any individual receives any suspicious phone calls or messages, they are advised not to provide their personal information. Instead, they should immediately contact the local law enforcement authorities within the vicinity or report to the cybercrime department of the government of India”, it said.
