The city police issued an advisory regarding insurance scams recently, warning people that scammers may call or send messages posing as employees or representatives from reputed insurance companies in a bid to steal data.
The advisory comprises three sections — stop, drop, and inform — asking citizens to avoid clicking on unknown links or downloading apps that scammers may suggest over the phone.
The scam may involve any kind of insurance, including medical and vehicle, the advisory, uploaded on social media, says.
“Report fraudulent activity at cybercrime helpline at 1930 and Kolkata Police cyber police station at 9836513000,” the advisory reads. Officers said the advisory was released after several cases emerged where victims claimed they were cheated through fake insurance calls.
“The moment someone clicks on a phishing link, a website opens, which looks just like the original website of a particular insurance company, but the URL is different. The data entered on this lookalike website goes directly to the server maintained by scammers and not to the original insurance company. The fraudsters then use the information to withdraw money,” a senior officer of the cyber wing of the city police said.
“Instead of filling out a form on the website, we urge residents not to rush. Take your time, and please visit the original website of the particular company in a separate tab and run a quick check. The dissimilarities would be evident,” said the officer.
Sources said the scammers sometimes call posing as staff of a particular insurance company where the victim has an existing policy.
The caller then tries to help the victim transfer his existing policies to a fresh policy for better returns.
Officers said the other trap would be to call a policyholder and tell him that his insurance agent, while buying the policy, had purchased another policy from another company.
“Scamsters would tell victims that they should receive dividends from the company for the policy the agent had purchased, which the customer was unaware of. Unless one deposits a particular sum to a certain account, the dividend, which runs into several lakhs, will be transferred to the agent’s account, the scamsters would claim,” said another senior officer of the cybercrime wing of the East Division of the city police.
“Those who take the bait lose the entire amount they deposit into the stated account,” said the officer.
Officers said a different set of fraudsters would often call those with existing insurance policies, posing as officials of the insurance verification department, asking for the PAN and Aadhaar numbers and bank details to complete the verification.
“A few others would call, saying you have been selected for a loyalty bonus for being a valued customer of the particular insurance company. The bonus would be transferred to the agent code instead of yours.
Please provide the policy details so the bonus can be transferred to you directly,” the officer said.
“If one does that, he ends up losing money,” he said.