I wanted to rent out my ground floor and hence posted a free advertisement on https://housing.com/.
From my post, I received two separate leads whom I contacted over phone.
One was a female ( identified herself as Sunita Kumari) who said she is from Indian army and posted in Mumbai and is looking for a place in Kolkata. She said her mother and two children will be staying and she would be visiting from Dumdum cantonment where she will be posted eventually. She provided fake PAN, Adhar and even her canteen smart card.
I was convinced and provided the bank credentials. The account was my mother's who does not have online banking or phone banking. Fraudster asked for G-pay/Phone pay/account with online banking. Then I provided mine. Luckily there was a delay in receiving the verification code for adding payee/beneficiary.
She had previously said that Army has a special process of transaction,for which I need to add Army merchant card as a payee in my bank app.
When the transaction did not go through because of the delay in receiving the verification code, I discussed it with my family who suggested that I check with the other lead who also identified himself as an Army person. Basically I wanted to check with him if he too will do the transaction through an Army merchant card. So I called his number (7052479733).
This fraudster has given his name as Shivashankar S Tiwari. He too had provided fake army ids (Aadhar and PAN).He said he is posted in Hyderabad and would be transferred to Kolkata soon and will be staying with his wife and one child.
When I called this person, his IVR started to play in Bengali, which raised my doubt. How can a Hyderabad number play a Bengali IVR? On my second attempt, he received my call. I asked him about the bengali IVR to which he could not give any convincing reply and also told me the same method of transaction as the female fraudster, i.e he too told me that Army merchant card will be required to transfer money to my account.
After this I did a search on Google with 'Army Merchant Card' as the keyword and was shell shocked to find all the data/complaints registered. God was with me that the verification code from my bank did not come through. Otherwise my hard earned money would have been with any of these fraudsters who are cheating people in the name of Indian Army. What a shame!
I immediately msgd these two people that they are frauds and after seeing my message, they immediately blocked me.
Sunita Kumari: PH no given: 8135971735
Shivashankar S Tiwari: PH no given: 7052479733
Please be aware and learn from my terrifying experience. Do not believe even if anyone provided PAN/Aadhar over WhatsApp. Search the phoebe numbers given to you on Truecaller app. It may give you the location or the place where the number belongs from. Do a video call, if required to see if the ids provided matches and most importantly do not add any unknown person to your banking app. No government organization does transaction through Gpay/phone pay UPI link. I am attaching the fake Army merchant card number detail provided by these two fraudsters for easy reference.
+91 9040163912