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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon put in place a process whereby people will be compensated by credit information companies (CICs) for delayed updation/rectification of credit information reports, said governor Shaktikanta Das. Recently, the CICs were brought under the purview of the Reserve Bank Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RB-IOS). “It is now proposed to put in place the following measures: (i) a compensation mechanism for delayed updation/rectification of credit information reports; (ii) a provision for SMS/emailAalerts to customers whenever their credit information reports are accessed; (iii) a timeframe for inclusion of data received by CICs from Credit Institutions; and (iv) disclosures on customer complaints received by CICs,” Mr Das said. According to him, the above measures will further enhance consumer protection. Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.

In a significant ruling, the national consumer disputes redressal commission (NCDRC) says a patient obtaining free services from a government hospital is not a consumer. The bench also appreciated a gesture by the doctor to offer Rs2 lakh to the complainant on humanitarian grounds for the death of a newborn. In an order passed last week, Dr SM Kantikar, presiding member of NCDRC, says, “It is pertinent to note that the community health centre (CHC) hospital is a government hospital providing free services and Dr Kirandeep Kaur was working as a government servant. Therefore, it was a ‘contract of service’ which Dr Kirandeep Kaur was rendering in CHC. Thus, the patient was not a consumer as defined under section 2(1)(d) of the consumer protection act. This view dovetails from the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Nivedita Singh vs Dr Asha Bharti. Therefore, the consumer complaint filed before the district forum is not maintainable.” Even though no negligence was attributable to her, Dr Kirandeep Kaur volunteered to pay Rs2 lakh to Beant Kaur, the complainant, on humanitarian grounds for the death of the newborn. “I appreciate the humanitarian gesture of the petitioner (Dr Kirandeep Kaur) and allow to pay a total of Rs2 lakh to Beant Kaur after deducting the amount, if any, that has already been paid or deposited. This direction, in any case, shall not be construed as a precedent,” NCDRC says. Beant Kaur was pregnant and, during the intervening night of 12 August 2011 and 13 August 2011, went to CHC hospital in Dhanula. Chhinderpal Kaur, the staff nurse at the Hospital, examined the patient and suspected gastritis. Beant Kaur’s labour pain further increased and meconium-stained discharge was noted. As there was no facility for Cesarean delivery (C-section), Dr Kirandeep Kaur referred the patient to the Civil Hospital at Barnala to Dr Jasbir Singh Aulakh. Beant Kaur delivered a baby with meconium which subsequently died. Beant Kaur, being aggrieved by the alleged negligence of Dr Kirandeep Kaur and Chhinderpal Kaur, filed a complaint before the district forum at Barnala, against the Punjab government, the chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Kirandeep Kaur, staff nurse Chhinderpal Kaur and Dr Jasbir Singh Aulakh. Partly allowing the complaint against the Punjab government and Dr Kirandeep Kaur, the district forum directed them to pay Rs2 lakh jointly and severally as compensation to Beant Kaur. Both the Punjab government and Dr Kirandeep Kaur filed an appeal before the state commission. However, the state commission upheld the order passed by the district forum. Dr Kirandeep Kaur then filed a revision petition before NCDRC. After hearing both sides and perusing medical records and documents, Dr Kantikar from NCDRC observed that it was full-term pregnancy. Beant Kaur approached Dr Kirandeep Kaur at midnight on 12th August and 13 August 2011 with acute abdominal pain. On the instructions of Dr Kirandeep Kaur, the staff nurse prescribed antacids, some lab tests were done outside and the patient was kept under observation. The bench says Beant Kaur showed meconium-stained discharge; therefore, emergency caesarian delivery was needed. However, due to the strike of national rural health mission (NRHM) staff nurses at CHC, Dhanaula, the C-section was not performed. Therefore, Dr Kirandeep Kaur referred the patient to Dr Jasbir Singh Aulakh at Civil Hospital in Barnala in the early morning by ambulance. The C-section was performed on 13 August 2011 at 10am. The newborn was engulfed with meconium stain and died after a few hours. “In my view, due to the strike of nurses, Dr Kirandeep Kaur was unable to perform a C-section and took a prompt decision to shift the patient at the civil hospital at Barnala. It was done in the best interest of the patient, which does not constitute medical negligence. It was neither deficiency nor failure of duty of care from Dr Kirandeep Kaur,” NCDRC says in the order. While allowing the revision petition, the bench set aside orders passed by the district forum and state commission. (Revision Petition No1786 of 2017     Date: 3 April 2023) Source: moneylife.in

The government on Wednesday said 18,890 complaints have been received on National Consumer Helpline since 2017 against cab aggregators Ola and Uber. “441 grievances have been received on PG (Public Grievance) portal and 18,890 complaints received on National Consumer Helpline from January 1, 2017 to March 31, 2023 against Ola and Uber,” Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs Ashwini Kumar Choubey said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has issued notices to Ola and Uber on concerns related with deficiency in service, inadequate consumer grievance redressal mechanism, unreasonable levy of cancellation charge and lack of any information on the algorithm, he added. Source: Business-standard.com

The Delhi High Court (HC) on Wednesday said its interim order staying the guidelines of central consumer protection authority (CCPA), that prohibit hotels and restaurants from levying service charges ‘automatically or by default’ on bills, shall not be shown on the menu cards or display boards in a manner to mislead the consumers that the service charge has been approved by the court. Justice Prathiba M Singh was hearing the petitions filed by Federation of Hotels and Restaurant Associations of India and National Restaurant Association of India challenging the CCPA’s rules released on 4th July past year, which the HC stayed later that month. A co-ordinate bench stayed the guidelines while specifying that the service charge and obligation of the customer to pay it must be “duly and prominently displayed on the menu or other places.” “It is clarified that the interim order shall not be shown in the display board or menu card in a manner to mislead the consumer that the service charge has been approved by this court,” justice Singh said. During the hearing, additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma submitted that various restaurants are ‘misinterpreting the interim order’ by using it to give legitimacy to levy of the service charge. Both Associations were ordered by justice Singh to produce an affidavit stating the proportion of their members who insist on the service charge as a requirement on meal bills. The court further stated that the response must state whether the members would object if the term ‘service charge’ were to be replaced with another term, such as “staff welfare fund, staff welfare contribution, or staff charges”, in order to prevent consumers from assuming that the fee is being levied by the government. “The affidavit shall also indicate the percentage of members who are willing to inform the consumers that the service charge is not mandatory and they can contribute voluntarily.” The judge then listed he matter for the next hearing on 24th July. “For a long time, most of us thought that the service charge is being taken by the government. That is where the problem is because people think service charge is like a service tax. A consumer doesn’t know the difference between service tax, GST etc. because people think it is being taken by the government. I have come across a lot of people who think like that,” the court said. The Centre had earlier argued that the recommendations were released in the best interests of consumers and urged the court to take the matter into consideration, including its plea for the vacation of the stay order. It had further apprised the court that certain restaurants were currently relying on the interim order to create the image that they are permitted to impose service charges. Justice Singh had said that without hearing the parties, the interim order cannot be modified and added that the application for a vacation of stay shall be taken into consideration if the main case cannot be heard on the next date. Counsel appearing for the petitioners had said the service charge, which has been in existence for the last several years, is a ‘traditional charge’ and is distributed among those who ‘are not before the customers’, and restaurants are seeking it after displaying due notice of the same on their menu cards and in their premises. The petitioners had further claimed that the CCPA’s order is arbitrary, untenable and ought to be quashed. Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.

Five cyber criminals have been arrested for procuring the PAN Card details of 95 prominent celebrities, including Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan and former captain of the Indian cricket team MS Dhoni, and getting credit cards issued in their names, an official said on Friday. According to officials, the cards were issued from Pune-based fintech startup ‘One Card’. The accused used the details and duped banks of over Rs 50 lakhs Some of the other celebrities whose names and details were used by the fraudsters were Shilpa Shetty, Madhuri Dixit, Emraan Hashmi, Saif Ali Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Alia Bhatt, Sonam Kapoor, Hritik Roshan, among others. The accused were identified as Puneet, Mohd Asif, Sunil Kumar, Pankaj Mishar and Vishwa Bhaskar Sharma. Joint Commissioner of Police (Eastern Range), Chhayya Sharma said that the accused forged government IDs of 95 celebrities and eminent persons to dupe banks of over Rs 50 lakhs. “The loophole is in documentation and backend verification which needs to be upgraded. All accused have good IT knowledge,” said the top officer. On interrogation, it was revealed that they used to get GST details of these celebrities from Google. “They were very well aware that the first two digits of GSTIN are state code and the next 10 digits are PAN numbers. Since the celebrities’ date of birth is available on Google, these two — PAN and date of birth — complete the PAN details,” said an official privy to investigation. “They got the PAN cards remade fraudulently by putting their own pictures on them so that during video verification, their looks match the photo available on their PAN/Aadhaar card. “The accused used to apply for credit cards and during video verification, they were asked questions related to their financial activities which they answered easily as they had got all such details from CIBIL,” the official added. Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.

Alarmed by the increase in phishing SMS messages asking ‘customers’ to update their permanent account number (PAN) through a short URL or link, HDFC Bank recently clarified that it never sends messages to its customers through an individual number and always uses SMS headers like HDFCBK or HDFCBN. While SMS link fraud is not new, what is worrying is that many persons who are not even customers of the Bank ostensibly receiving the message and opening links. At Moneylife, we have repeatedly said that opening such links can have serious implications for the user. She may end up sharing personal information, including bank details and lose money to fraudsters. A few months ago, the police arrested some criminals responsible for the ‘pending electricity bill’ fraud. Yet, many mobile phone subscribers continue to receive such fraudulent messages. A retired senior bank official was just about to get duped by these fraudsters when she contacted us to complain about the erratic response from the electricity provider. On further probe, we realised it was an electricity bill fraud and requested the banker to block the numbers immediately. Here are some images of the fraudulent messages sent in the name of banks… What should you do to protect yourself from being duped by these fraudsters? First and foremost, what every mobile subscriber needs to understand is that genuine or authentic SMS messages from banks or service providers usually contain a sender ID (consisting of their short name) instead of the phone number of the sender. So, if you receive any SMS from a number asking you to share or update any of your know-your-customer (KYC) information like sharing photo ID, Aadhaar, PAN and email ID, simply delete the message. Never click on the link in such an SMS. In a few cases, fraudsters have even used SMS headers that appear legitimate. Such SMS headers are registered with and assigned by a mobile operator; so if you receive a fraudulent message with such headers, you can report it to the concerned telecom company and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Details of each SMS header are available on the TRAI website. Here is the link https://smsheader.trai.gov.in/ Other than checking the sender’s number or SMS header, you can also be misled by fraudsters using short URLs in the messages. Sometimes, banks use short URLs, but again, unless you have initiated the transaction, do not open the link. Short URLs are basically a mini version of longish URLs. For example, here is the original URL of an article from Moneylife, https://moneylife.in/article/prateek-gupta-the-big-indian-defaulter-behind-a-500-million-international-commodities-fraud/70001.html. Now, if you want to send or share the article on social media like Twitter or through SMS, where there is a limit on word count, you need to shorten this long URL into something that would fit in the word limit. Using a free URL shortener service, this can be shortened to tinyurl.com/ycxe6r8r. Cybercriminals use URL shorteners to reduce the link’s word count and hide the original link. And since the original URL is hidden, people end up opening the link assuming that it, indeed, belongs to their bank or service-provider. In most cases, when you click on the link, malware gets installed on your mobile device (Android), providing access to all information on your device to the criminal gangs. In a few cases, the screen-sharing app may also be installed on the victim’s device. Once the fraudsters have access to your device, they can easily use the information to rob you. Suspicious apps that may get installed on your mobile could contain remote access trojans (RAT) and device-sharing apps like AnyDesk, which help fraudsters access the device and the entire data. Since the RAT and device-sharing apps remain hidden, the user will never know about their existence. RAT and the device-sharing apps show the entire activity of the device to the fraudsters in real-time. They can read all your messages, access the entire gallery and even call recordings. In these cases, the strict rule is never to open any shortened links. In the rarest case, if you want to open the link out of curiosity, visit wheregoes.com or checkshorturl.com. Both websites offer a free tool that tracks the short URL to its destination. Remember, your bank or any registered financial institutution never sends any SMS nor makes any call from a mobile number. All financial institutions are mandated to use specific SMS headers registered with the telecom operator. For example, VM-SBIINB is a registered and authorised SMS header of State Bank of India (SBI). However, the Bank may use other SMS headers while retaining its identity ‘SBI’ in the header like BV-SBIPSG, VM-SBIPSG, BZ-CBSSBI. The typical format and structure of the header with prefixes are as below: XY – ABCDEF, where X denotes telecom service-provider (TSP); Y denotes licence service area (LSA) and ABCDEF is a header assigned to the principal entity or registrant. (Read: Finally, TRAI Shares Names of Telemarketers and Their Codes!) Lastly, your bank has all the KYC details you submitted while opening the account. So, it will not ask you to selectively share or update only PAN details. If needed, your bank will ask you to update your entire KYC details by visiting your home branch.  How Not To Become a Victim • Do NOT click on any link, especially the short URL, shared by anyone via SMS/email. • Do NOT download any app other than from the authorised app stores (Google Play store). • Use a good quality anti-virus (several free apps provide good protection) for protection from viruses, malware, ransomware and remote access. source: moneylife.in.

After reports surfaced that personal information of nearly 6 lakh customers of HDFC Bank was allegedly leaked on the Dark Web, the bank said on Tuesday there has been no data leak of its customers. According to Privacy Affairs website, the HDFC Bank customers’ samples were posted on the hacker forum and “the posted data appears to be genuine”. HDFC Bank Cares Twitter handle on Tuesday posted that “there is no data leak at HDFC Bank and our systems have not been breached or accessed in any unauthorised manner”. “We remain confident of our systems. However we treat the matter of our customers data security with utmost seriousness and we continue to,” said the bank. Data allegedly includes full names, email addresses, physical addresses, and sensitive financial data, the report mentioned. Cyber-criminals allegedly posted the data for sale on a popular hacker forum. The criminals provided data samples while demanding money for the full database. “The criminals explained that the hack was allegedly obtained just recently, in early March 2023, and contains data from May 2022 to March 2023,” said the report. Several Twitter users on March 6 posted about facing outages, failed transfers and even scam messages on the official HDFC Bank mobile app. There has been a surge in spam bank text messages in the recent past. Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.

Upholding the decision of fora below, the national consumer disputes redressal commission (NCDRC) reiterated that Bank of Baroda (BoB) is deficient in providing the requisite service for a home loan and must pay a compensation of Rs1 lakh to the borrower. In an order last week, the bench of Binoy Kumar (presiding member) and justice Sudip Ahluwalia (member) says, “No copy of any letter intimating the complainant about the infirmity or illegality of the no objection certificate (NOC) was placed on record by the opposite parties to support their claim, as admittedly no such letter was actually issued to the complainant. In such circumstances, both the fora below were justified in holding that the Bank had been deficient in providing the requisite service to the complainant in respect of his loan for which the sanction letter had already been issued.” NCDRC, while dismissing the appeal, also directed BoB to pay Rs1 lakh compensation to the borrower, as per the ruling by the state commission. Nallasopara-based Jayprakash R Kushwaha had applied for a home loan from the Bank. Based on documents submitted by him, on 8 February 2007, BoB issued a pre-sanction letter to Mr Kushwaha. Using the pre-sanction letter, Mr Kushwaha executed the agreement for sale with Rahul Lokhande, the seller, and paid Rs87,000 as margin money to the Bank. BoB transferred the home loan file of Mr Kushwaha to its Saki Naka branch in Andheri. As per instructions from the Bank, Mr Kushwaha visited the Saki Naka branch and submitted all documents, including an NOC and a share certificate obtained from New Neil Aangan CHS Ltd. However, even after submitting all required documents, the Bank did not issue a cheque for loan disbursement. On enquiry, Mr Kushwaha was told that his file was missing and the loan would be disbursed as soon as the file was found. However, no loan was disbursed to Mr Kushwaha, despite repeated reminders and visits to the branch. He then sent two legal notices and filed a complaint before the Thane district consumer complaint redressal forum against BoB. During the hearing before the district forum, the Bank contended that the NOC submitted by Mr Kushwaha was false and fabricated as it did not bear the signatures of the president or the secretary of the housing society which was informed to them by the chairman and secretary of New Neil Aangan CHS. It also claimed that Mr Lokhande, the seller, was not authorised to execute the agreement for sale in respect of the flat. Hence, the title of the flat was not clear and the loan could not be given to Mr Kushwaha, the Bank contended. During the hearing, the chairman and secretary of New Neil Aangan CHS remain absent. After hearing both sides, the district forum observed, “BoB, after complying with all the processes, inquiring with the chairman and secretary of New Neil Aangan CHS about the NOC, and later giving in writing about not having the signature of the chairman of the society on the Bank’s letterhead, to remain absent in the case before the Forum, taking search report after complaint is filed, taking certificate regarding ownership, all these facts raise doubt in the bank’s working system.” “… it is clear that BoB having encroached upon the legal rights of Mr Kushwaha and alternately he has been deprived from the basic rights of the consumer from the time the possession of the house has been taken over, upto the period of acquiring membership of the housing society and using the house. Therefore, it has come to the conclusion of the Forum that the Bank has defaulted in providing facility in housing loan to the complainant,” the district forum says. Bank of Baroda challenged the ruling before the Maharashtra state consumer disputes redressal commission. On 24 April 2017, the state commission dismissed the appeal, saying, “(the) Bank had not responded to Mr Kushwaha on the pretext that house loan file of complainant is missing. Under such circumstances, we are of the opinion that there was deficiency in service given by the Bank to Mr Kushwaha and hence he is entitled to get compensation from the Bank alongwith costs of litigation.” Alleging failure by the state commission to exercise its jurisdiction in the wake of admitted fact of forgery and fabrication, BoB filed an appeal before the national commission. After hearing both sides, NCDRC observed that irrespective of the question of whether or not the NOC was actually fabricated, it was the duty of the Bank to inform Mr Kushwaha promptly that it was not acceptable in view of the information purportedly gathered from the chairman and secretary of New Neil Aangan CHS. “But the same was not done which ex-facie was a deficiency in service on the part of the Bank. Had Mr Kushwaha been informed about this fact, he could have either rebutted the same, or resorted to any other method to secure a genuine certificate, if the same delivered to him was found to be false, fabricated or unauthorised. But the Bank in Para 12 of their reply filed in the district forum, simply denied in a bald fashion that ‘they have not intimated to the complainant about the delay in disbursement of the housing loan’”. Elsewhere they merely stated that they had ‘orally informed’ to the complainant about the delay in disbursement of the loan since the title of the said property was not clear and marketable,” it says.  NCDRC also noted that the Bank failed to even respond to two legal notices sent by Mr Kushwaha. Nearly five-six months after he filed the complaint before the district forum, the Bank replied to his notices. “No copy of any letter intimating the complainant about the infirmity or illegality of the NOC was placed on record by the Bank to support its claim, as admittedly no such letter was actually issued to the complainant,” the bench stated. It then directed Bank of Baroda to pay Rs1 lakh as compensation to Mr

While rejecting an insurance claim, the national consumer disputes redressal commission (NCDRC) directed Oriental Insurance Co Ltd to pay Rs1 lakh to compensate the complainant for the insurer’s dilatory and harassing attitude before belatedly repudiating the insurance claim. In this case, the commission upheld that legal heirs of an insured must get the policy transferred in their names within the stipulated time to claim the insurance. In an order issued last week, the bench of Binoy Kumar (presiding member) and justice Sudip Ahluwalia (member) says, “…while holding that the claim of the complainant was not tenable on account of non-compliance of relevant policy conditions which required him to get the policy transferred in his name within the time specified, the revision is allowed after setting aside the impugned order of the state commission. At the same time, a compensation of Rs1 lakh towards mental pain and harassment is awarded to the respondent on account of the dilatory and harassing attitude of the insurance company before belatedly repudiating his insurance claim.” Delhi-based Sujap Singh, son of Amarjeet Singh, had filed the complaint before the district forum against the insurer. Amarjeet Singh bought an Rs7 lakh insurance policy for his truck from Oriental Insurance from 8 September 2004 to 7 September 2005. However, on 3 November 2004, Amarjeet Singh died. The truck was stolen on the night of 22nd and 23 May 2005. The Singh family filed a first information report (FIR) and intimated the insurer. However, despite collecting all relevant documents from the Singhs, Oriental Insurance rejected the claim. The Singh family then filed a complaint before the district forum. During the hearing before the district forum, Oriental Insurance denied any deficiency in service. It contended that “as per terms and conditions of the insurance policy in the event of death of the sole insured, the policy does not lapse immediately but remains valid for a period of three months from the date of death of insured or until the expiry of policy (whichever is earlier) and during such period, the legal heirs of the insured may apply for the transfer of the policy to their name or obtain a new policy.” In the present case, the insurer submitted that Sujap Singh got the vehicle transferred in his name on 18 May 2006 or after the theft, violating condition no10 of the insurance policy. “At the time of the theft of the vehicle, the policy was not in force and the same had already lapsed as per the terms of the policy and it had rightly repudiated the claim,” it says. The district forum dismissed the complaint filed by Sujap Singh. Aggrieved by this order, he filed the first appeal before the state commission at Delhi. While setting aside the order passed by the district forum, the state commission directed Oriental Insurance to pay the claim amount to Sujap Singh. “Having regard to the discussion done and law laid down we are of the considered view that the repudiation of the claim is not sustainable. The insurance company cannot escape its responsibility and obligation to allow the claim. Accordingly, we set aside the orders passed by the district fora and direct the insurance company to settle and pay the claim within 30 days from the date of receipt of the order.” Oriental Insurance challenged the order before NCDRC. It contended that it is settled law that in the event of any failure on the part of a transferee of an insured vehicle to comply with the relevant terms and conditions in the insurance policy within the period provided therein, the insurer is not liable to satisfy the claim. After hearing both sides, the NCDRC observed that on the existing position of law in this regard, particularly in the light of some subsequent decisions of the apex court, the claim of Mr Singh is not tenable. “This is so because it has to be noted that breach of policy conditions which in the present case happen to be failure to get the policy transferred in the name of the complainant within the time prescribed, ipso facto disentitles him from claiming the compensation as on the relevant date i.e. three months after death of his father- registered owner and insured, as there was no privity of contract between him and the insurance company,” it stated. However, NCDRC says, “considering the unprofessional and unfair conduct on the part of the insurance company in not promptly repudiating the claim of Mr Singh for the reason that he had failed to comply with the relevant clause for transfer of the insurance policy in his name within the specified time from the date of death of his father or original insured, would certainly invite censure.”  “It is a matter of record that intimation of the claim was submitted as far back as on 26 May 2005. But, Mr Singh was made to approach the insurance company again and again on various pretexts and asked to submit some documents or the other which would have been altogether irrelevant if his claim was to be ultimately repudiated solely on the ground that he had failed to comply with the requisite policy terms and conditions. The documents asked from him during the intervening period were such irrelevant ones as the original cover note, financial repayments, status, and proof of the existence of the vehicle in November 2004, apart from asking him to comply with some other formalities vide letter dated 10 January 2007. But, a copy of the such letter has not been placed on record on behalf of the insurance company.” “The claim was finally repudiated almost two years later on 18 April 2007 after the complainant had been made to submit all the information and documents sought from him. He certainly deserves to be compensated for such harassment, callousness and uncalled-for attitude on the part of the insurance company in making him run from pillar to post before finally repudiating his claim for a reason which had

Technology is a double-edged sword; unless the user has good intentions, it can end up in a blood bath—not necessarily in terms of physical harm, but it could decimate one’s finances and cause immense mental trauma. All of us have read innumerable news reports and social media posts about people being duped by scammers or messages that are ostensibly from banks, financial service-providers or key utility companies. This telecalling or messaging menace has turned increasingly more sophisticated over time. Fraudsters are now obtaining and using landline phones and intelligent voice responses (IVR) technology for spamming almost every mobile subscriber nationwide. Unfortunately, India still does not have an effective grievance redressal mechanism for customers. Sector regulators are supposed to play a vital role in protecting consumers, but most fall short or simply do not care about implementing effective redress systems. One regulator has virtually said that resolving consumer complaints is not its job! Yes, you guessed it right. It is the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that does not take any cognizance of individual complaints from telecom subscribers. The TRAI portal, under its frequently asked questions (FAQs) on consumer complaints , says, “TRAI Act, 1997 does not envisage handling of individual consumer complaints by TRAI. As per the Telecom Consumers Protection and Redressal of Grievances Regulations, 2007, in case a consumer has a complaint, the first step is to register the complaint at the toll-free call centre number of the service provider and obtain a docket number, confirming registration of the complaint.” In short, consumers must take up their complaints with their respective service-providers, even if the complaint is against them, or perhaps approach consumer courts. Interestingly, while TRAI remains in its ivory tower and ignores complaints, the department of telecom (DoT) at least shows the courtesy of responding. Unfortunately, it is a standard response: “Your message has been forwarded to the concerned telecom services provider (TSP)/division for necessary action.” Consequently, the number of spam calls hawking personal loans, credit cards, and many other things, as well as scam calls from fraudsters, have increased exponentially. With individual data being freely sold without punitive consequences, spam messages inundate people’s phones. There exists an app called TRAI DND (do not disturb). Unfortunately, an app is not a regulator and can only act as a facilitator by forwarding details of spam calls and SMSs to the central registry number 1909 in a specified format. Barring the few cases where the number of the caller or SMS sender is available and thus can be disconnected, there is no other action taken against the telemarketers or spammers reported on the app. Most often, the app blindly accepts standard replies provided by spammers, who may be using an SMS header obtained from a TSP. For example, I used to receive several SMS from a portal selling old items, with a header of ‘IM-Selold’. Before receiving these spam messages, I had not even heard of its name, so there was no question of me using any service they offered. Yet, when I complained from the DND app, I was told this was a ‘service SMS/call’! Spammers are now using new methods for their nefarious activities, including setting up call centres and obtaining landline phone numbers. You may be aware that buying a new SIM (subscriber identity module) card is simple, but obtaining a landline is time-consuming and involves scrutiny, including verification of the premises where it would be installed. Yet, fraudsters are able to bypass this scrutiny and obtain landline phones for their fraud call centres. Earlier this week, a surprise raid by the officers of the Bidhannagar police commiserate unearthed unaccounted cash worth around Rs4 crore seized from a fake call centre in the Rajarhat-Newtown area on the outskirts of Kolkata. The police suspect that the arrested persons were also involved in illegal hawala transactions besides running the fake call centre. A police officer told IANS that through this call centre, these persons mainly targeted elderly citizens in different parts of the globe. “We suspect the arrested persons are part of an international forgery racket. We will interrogate them to collect information on their partners and masterminds in this illegal trade,” the officer says. Similarly, the cybercrime branch of the Gurugram police busted a fake stock trading call centre and arrested 13 people, including two foreign nationals. This fake call centre was involved in duping a man of Rs1.6 crore by luring him to invest in the stock market, cryptocurrency, and international share market. These fraudsters then scam the victims by making them invest in fake trading websites—Lexa Trade and Grow Line in the name of investing in the stock market, cryptocurrency and international share market by putting advertisements and pop-ups on Facebook, Instagram and social networking sites, police told IANS. Some of the call centres are using IVRs for calling and spamming mobile subscribers with telemarketing. Many of them are operating from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. For example, fraudsters are using landline phone numbers from Ahmedabad, Indore, Lucknow and even Nashik for IVR-based telemarketing.   This number 079-35282894 is from Ahmedabad and the number check on Truecaller shows it as a spam call for SBI credit card. A similar series number 079-35282884 is noted as a spam call for loan fraud. Another number, 0731-6197022 is from Indore and is used for investment and health check spam. Mumbai landline phones are not far behind. A number 022-50044270 uses IVR for personal loans. Another number 022-68535246 is mentioned as ‘fraud’, ‘survey’ and ‘card payment reminders’ on Truecaller. Hyderabad is not far behind. A number 040-71320226 is used for marketing fraudulent personal loans in the name of State Bank of India (SBI). One number from Nashik, 0253-6913263, shows as a financial service in the name of Bajaj Finance Ltd. However, the telecaller is selling personal loans and cards from DBS. Lucknow is also on the list of such automated IVR calls using the landline. The number 0522-7187781 is used for a personal loan through IVR. The IVR message