Pakistani Scammer Busted on Video Call While Targeting SBI Customers
A daring scam attempt from across the border exposes potential data leaks in India's banking system, raising concerns for millions of SBI account holders.
It was a Saturday morning at around 9:30 am, and I was getting ready for work when my wife entered the room and told me that she had received a call from someone claiming to be from SBI (State Bank of India). The caller informed her that I had won a prize of 5 lakh rupees and instructed her to submit my documents, like my Aadhaar card and PAN card, through a link they had sent if we wanted to claim the money.
My wife told the caller to call back in five minutes so she could discuss it with me. We immediately realized it was a scam. Sure enough, five minutes later, the phone rang again, and this time I answered. From the start, it was clear that this was a scam. The person on the other end introduced himself as Ajay and said he was calling from an SBI branch in Jammu, claiming my wife won a 5 lakh rupee prize . He said the money would be transferred in five minutes—all I needed to do was click the link and submit my details.
Interestingly, my wife has a bank account in a branch in Jammu, and the scammer already had access to many of her account details. I told the caller I wasn’t convinced and asked if we could have a video call, to which he agreed. Two minutes later, he called back on my wife’s WhatsApp.
On the video call, I saw a young man, around 24-25 years old, sitting in an office with an SBI ID card around his neck, and there was an SBI canopy behind him. He even showed me large amounts of cash, trying to prove that he wasn’t a scammer. Everything was happening so fast that I couldn’t record the call, but I did manage to take a screenshot.
After 2-3 minutes, he disconnected the video call and switched back to voice. This time, I was ready and started asking him questions, like why an SBI representative would call through WhatsApp. No legitimate bank in India would call on WhatsApp to discuss loan information. As the conversation progressed, I noticed someone else was with him, listening in and giving him instructions. On top of that, I could hear donkey braying in the background, which immediately made me suspicious that this call was coming from outside India. Donkeys are commonly found in Karachi, Pakistan, but not in populated cities in India.
After several more questions, I bluntly asked if he felt any shame scamming innocent people. I also asked if he wasn’t afraid of the police since he was even doing video calls. At that, he started laughing loudly and told me that he was very poor, and that’s why he was doing this. He said he just wanted to eat pizza that day, so he thought he’d scam a few people. This confirmed my suspicion that the call was from Pakistan. His accent didn’t sound Indian, and if an Indian scammer were calling, they wouldn’t be so bold and unafraid of getting caught. But this guy was talking so confidently, as if he had no fear of being traced or caught.
After talking for a few more minutes, the conversation turned into a joke. It was time for me to head to work, so I told him not to call again. Before hanging up, I asked how many people he scams each day, and he said it depends, but usually, he gets 4-5 people a day. He kept joking around, even asking me to send him money for pizza.
I hung up and blocked his number. What happened next was shocking. Exactly two minutes later, I started receiving WhatsApp calls from my wife’s own number! I mean, we were getting calls from our own number. I ignored the calls, but they kept coming, so I had no choice but to turn the phone off. Eventually, I removed the SIM card.
This whole experience was strange, but it made me realize something important. We, as media people, can easily recognize such spammers, but India is a large country, and many SBI customers are middle-class or poor. How will they understand when someone is trying to scam them? The most concerning thing is how this scammer had access to State Bank of India data. This means there’s a data leak somewhere in the banking system.
If our public banks’ data continues to leak, countless people in India will become victims of these scammers.