Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the chief of Paytm left his followers in splits today, sharing screenshots of his conversation with someone impersonating him. The imposter, a scammer, was out to extract sensitive information about the company's funds and asked him multiple questions about the funds and contact details of the finance head of the company. He said his phone was being formatted so he did not have anyone's number.
Titling the post "Impersonating myself to me", Mr Sharma provided multiple screenshots of the long conversation, where the scammer introduced himself as Vijay Shekhar Sharma and asked the real Sharma to save his "new" phone number and questioned whether he was in the office.
The Paytm chief played along.
In course of the conversation, the scammer asked Mr Sharma to check and report back on the company's available funds. He also demanded a screenshot of the account books.
In another message, he asked Mr Sharma to forward a suspicious .exe file-disguised as a GST document-to the finance executive.
The last message from the screenshots was from Mr Sharma, where he asked for a salary hike.
The encounter spotlighted the darker side of the digital world, where unsuspecting individuals are targeted by scamsters using sophisticated manoeuvres, advanced techniques, fake profiles, malicious links and impersonation.
On Wednesday, the Telecom Department introduced the 'Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI)' that enables enhanced intelligence sharing with banks, UPI service providers and financial institutions.
It is expected that the step would help tackle cyber fraud and financial crimes.
