Gift cards, fraudsters’ new bait to swindle money

Hyderabad: Fraudsters always seem to be keeping a close eye on the latest fad and staying abreast with emerging trends. Given the heavy reliance on WhatsApp to stay in touch with each other among families and friends, and also for sharing information and inputs in the official and professional sphere, criminals thriving in the cyberworld and social media have now started to weave their strategies around it.

Of late, impersonators posing as senior government officials or superiors at an organisation have started to target people by convincing them to send gift cards of high value to them.

“Can you arrange 10 Amazon Gift Cards worth Rs 5,000 each? It’s urgent. I am at a crucial meeting with limited phone calls. I will reimburse the money by the end of the day,” one of the messages sent to a victim who approached the Hyderabad City Police read.

All the messages are identical and sent via WhatsApp. “The impersonators use the photograph of any higher officer, celebrity or some affluent person who could be known to the victim as their WhatsApp display picture,” a Cybercrime official said.

On getting such messages, people hardly verify it and instead go a step ahead to do the ‘favour for them’, in the hope of maintaining good relations. “The gangs access websites of different government agencies, corporate companies and download the photographs. Afterwards, the pictures are used as DP images,” he said.

The conmen have knowledge of the position of government officials or corporates and after studying it, identify a prey and target them. After getting the gift cards, they sell it on websites at discounted prices.

“There are a couple of websites where gift cards are put up for sale. People visit those websites and purchase the cards after transferring money through online payment channels,” the official said. In city alone, 15 cases were reported in the last two months as fraudsters even impersonated very senior officials of State government.