People fall prey to virtual phone numbers

HYDERABAD: Rekha (name changed) joined a matrimonial portal hoping to find a life partner, but she didn’t know she would end up losing Rs 5.4 lakh. Rekha met her ‘prospective life partner’ Tarun (name changed), an NRI reportedly based in the US, through the portal and started talking to him on WhatsApp. It turned out Tarun was a fraudster from Noida, impersonating as an NRI.

“Several applications provide a virtual phone number. These applications are used as tools by fraudsters to appear genuine when they claim to be an NRI to dupe victims. The virtual phone number could be with a country code of the US or the UAE. The fraudsters, likely sitting in Delhi or Mumbai, can claim to be an NRI using a virtual number. They would only chat