Isn’t it a general human tendency to feel that nothing wrong is ever going to happen to us? I mean, sure, we have our moments of skepticism, when we spiral down the labyrinth of our worst thoughts sometimes, like a presentation might go wrong or we are going to miss our flight, but these are things that seem plausible or nearer to us at that moment. Nobody thinks that there would be a blast in their vicinity, that their plane would crash in the Amazon forests where they would have to resort to cannibalism, or that they would be a victim of a scam or a fraud. These scenarios make for a good Netflix show, right? We know these incidents happen around us, but somehow they feel far from us.
It’s true, especially for our generation, who have grown up on these cautionary tales through shows, movies, newspaper articles, and more recently, countless reels. We are the ones who tell our parents to stay away from the ‘lottery’ they won or the scam calls they receive. “Just, please, don’t share your details”. We are the media-literate know-it-all generation who are not supposed to fall for these things, right? Well, I also believed in that, until this morning.
My sleep was disturbed around 8:30AM when my phone started ringing at that ungodly hour (yeah, go ahead, judge me you early birds). Opening one eye with the certainty to give the person hell if not an emergency, first I rushed to charge my device which had 1% battery left, of course. Then I picked up the call and within 20 seconds, the pre-recorded voice on the other side did what 4 cups of espresso shots couldn’t have done at that point. It was supposedly a call from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which was going to deactivate my number and suspend it for ‘illegal activities’ within the next 2 hours. See, all the other things in the world seizing to function is on one side, your phone number not working is a trouble you don’t wish even your worst enemies. You can’t book a cab, make payments, can’t call anyone for help, all your work stops – you practically lose every form of contact and transaction in life somehow.
So when the automated voice gave me the option to talk to their helpline person, I wasted zero seconds in pressing ‘0’. I will be honest, it’s always a relief to hear human voices in distress. I should have doubted when he didn’t ask me about language options and started addressing the issue in English (it always establishes some credibility, doesn’t it? Kab jaayega ye colonial hangover?). He asked my name and told me the whole issue – apparently there was another number registered on my name, which was involved in sending ‘illegal advertisements and harassing texts’ and my actual number was given as an alternate number for that convict phone number. He also conveyed that I had an FIR registered in my name in Andheri Police Station, where I was supposed to go later that day. However, when I told him my current location is in Delhi, he was to arrange a call to the Andheri P.S.
Then he was ‘kind enough’ and went on about how I should be careful with my Government ID cards, and he told me to get a copy and pen to note down what I needed to tell the police. When I said I knew what to tell the Police, he insisted on dictating the exact words saying, “Sir, don’t worry, we won’t leave you halfway like this.” (Aww, ngl, it was touching). He told me all the details about my supposed FIR number, the location of the other sim card where it was operated and the day it started operating. Until that point, I didn’t take it that seriously, but he told me a date exactly when I was in Bombay for 2 days, that was the point that really made me believe all these things to be true.
So, all set now, the application for a cross-complaint was all set, but then the call got disconnected. I was wondering where my apparent guardian angel had gone who was going to save my career, dignity, and honour. So, I called my actual ones, and my ethical hacker cousin (I know cool stuff) just had to say, “How are you falling for this?”. He went on a different tangent that when the next call comes, “Tu unke mazze le”. It calmed me down, but the skepticism went away only after my friends sent me screenshots from the TRAI website addressing these issues, stating that they NEVER contact anyone like this. Just a Google search or two made me aware of similar incidents to other people and I had already started feeling like Chatur from 3 Idiots on that road-safety call scene.
In my defense, he didn’t ask me for anything monetary, nor any details or any card numbers, he was giving me life advice, so since he was not gaining anything out of this, I had little reason to doubt him at all.
So yeah, I am a post-graduate who contributes to the social media team of an online platform in India – not bragging, I am just saying I should have known the reality from the start but this made me panic for a while. So please, let everyone around you know to not panic in these moments and talk to people around them before taking any action or simply before clicking on anything on their phones. No matter how distant it feels, it’s called an accident for a reason.
