Online frauds are only increasing by the day, even if you were to just follow the news reports in your local daily. Paytm has now taken one step. It is sharing the information on the fraudsters and is going ahead and filing FIRs as well. It is Paytm Payments Bank that has taken this step and the number of phone details of fraudsters turned over to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is 3,500. Besides TRAI, the details have been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs and CERT-in the cybersecurity agency.
Not stopping at just sharing the numbers, Paytm Bank has also filed FIR against the owners of the 3,500 numbers at Noida, where the bank’s head office is situated. These steps may not be able to completely stop the online frauds being committed. However, if proper action is initiated against these fraudsters by identifying the entities behind these numbers, it can help deter the others from making attempts.
Most of such online frauds are committed by persons who believe their numbers cannot be traced back. Many of them may destroy the SIM cards after committing the frauds and obtain new numbers. They are also capable of shifting the areas where they perpetrate the frauds from one place to another and escape being caught.
Separately, there are attempts being made to share data among the stakeholders like the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India.
These crooks send SMS messages to gullible bank customers using SMS short codes which look very similar to the genuine ones and the customers feel they are getting the messages from the banks directly. Here, the telecom operators have a role to play. They assign these short codes and have to be cautious while assigning such codes and ensure no unscrupulous elements get hold of these codes.
Customers end up blaming the bank when they are robbed of their money since they feel there are no adequate safeguards put in place by the institutions. Ultimately, it becomes the joint responsibility of everyone to stop these frauds including the customers who part with confidential information to unknown persons.