Call Merged, Money Gone! NPCI Warns UPI Users Of New Call Merging Scam; What Is It? How Does It Work?

Scammers are using different types of techniques and tricks to steal money and dupe people online. After fake calls for OTP, digital arrest, and WhatsApp link scams, fraudsters are now targeting people with a 'call merging scam alert'. Victims of this online fraud unknowingly share confidential one-time passwords and end up losing their hard-earned money.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) recently warned UPI users about the 'call merging scam' and has asked them to beware of unknown calls and never merge another call in between.

What is call merging scam?

According to a recent post by UPI's X account, a stranger may call you or invite you to an event or any other similar opportunity. Fraudsters target people in similar scams in the name of job opportunities, lottery tickets, pending parcels, document verification from government offices, pending bank account details, etc. The caller may ask you to merge another call in between the conversation to get bank OTP details and wipe off your savings.

Call merging scam: How does it work?

It all begins when scammers call people and introduce themselves as an agent or a government employee. Later, they introduce any exciting scheme or opportunity and start the conversation.

After a brief explanation about the opportunity and trying to convince the victim about their authenticity, the caller may ask them to merge another incoming call. The fraudster often tricks people by saying that his or her friend is calling from a different number and asks them to merge the call.

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But the merged call is not from another person but it is an automated call from bank to provide OTP for transaction. As per UPI's awareness message, scammers time the OTP call from bank in such a way that people may not doubt before merging the call.

As soon as you merge your call, the the bank call will share the OTP and scammers will complete the transaction wiping off all your hard earned money from your bank account.

Call merging scams: How to stay protected?

Merging calls is a convenient way to talk on conference calls with multiple people at same time. But never merge any unknown number with your call with an agent or any other stranger.

If you feel that merging a call is necessary, then think for a second, put the existing caller on hold and listen to the incoming call first before merging it with the existing one.

Never share OTPs with any one, even with your closed ones on WhatsApp messages or chats. This practice makes you an easy target of fraudsters and scammers.

Enable spam call detection on your phone so that most of the spam and fraud calls are filtered out even before you pick them up. Your job doesn't end when you identify a fake or spam call as you must always report the call to your bank or cyber police station. Always mark these callers as spam. Stay updated with recent guidelines and awareness initiatives by NPCI related to fraud and scams. Apart from OTP, never share your bank details other confidential information with a stranger on call.