‘Next level fraudsters’: Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma flags a scam

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

While the digital era has afforded us many conveniences, it has also led a rise in cyber-crime. The last few years have seen a rampant growth in internet frauds that range from phishing links to lottery scams. There have been innumerable incidents of people being scammed out of their savings after clicking on a suspicious link, sharing their OTP or other common mistakes. In fact, even high-ranking personalities have been targeted by conmen, as Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma revealed today.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma posted a screenshot of a message he received from someone claiming to be an American named Dr Larry Greens.

The message, full of grammatical and spelling errors, introduced ‘Dr Larry Greens’ of USA as someone looking for a partner in India to supply raw materials and urged the recipient to email drlarrygreens@gmail.com for more details.

Interestingly, the message from someone claiming to be an American was sent using an Indian phone number.

“Next level fraudsters,” the CEO of the digital payments app Paytm wrote while sharing the snapshot on Twitter.

Next level fraudsters. pic.twitter.com/rtQHb8Rij5

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— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) November 9, 2022

Pehle mera wala to fraud ko pakdiye

Bta bta k sir me dard ho rha

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Cyber department is also USELESS. (IF U DON'T BELIEVE THEN JUST TRY TO DO A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT. EITHER NOT PICKING THE CALL OR DIVERTING MUMBAI CYBER TO DELHI CYBER OR VICE VERSA) @Paytmcare @Cyberdost pic.twitter.com/Qh80F78tOl

— Kaushal (@KaushalAAP) November 9, 2022

wow same msg. pic.twitter.com/rH1Usp4QC0

— nehal (@nehalafnama) November 9, 2022

@vijayshekhar I am getting many like this both to my number and mail ..

— Pravin Christo (@ChristoPravin) November 9, 2022

Others were amused by the blatant attempt at a fraud, with the fraudster not even bothering to conceal the Indian phone number

Larry Green from USA is sending message using indian Sim card. Fraudsters are not even trying to pretend like genuine. So much laziness around.

— DEEPAK GUPTA (@MrEarthenlamp) November 9, 2022

+91 se bhej raha hai and saying I am from USA

— Sagar Satpute (@ssagar_satpute) November 9, 2022

The best way to safeguard against scams is to remain vigilant and follow certain guidelines – like setting up two-factor authentication and never sharing OTP. Here are some practices you can adopt to avoid falling prey to online scams.