Fraudulent Search Engine Advertisements and Phishing scams

• Fraudsters are meddling with the customer care numbers of reputed companies and financial institutions on platforms such as Twitter, Google and Facebook to misdirect consumers into calling them. This is done in several ways.
• The most commonly practiced method is where fraudsters modify customer care numbers/ email of a company on Google and use SEO to push their fake number at the top of the search results. As a consumer goes looking for a service provider’s customer care numberson Google, they fall for the trap by dialing the first number from the search results.
• Social media channels are the other mediums where frauds tamper with customer care numbers. They closely follow complaints being raised by consumers on social media handles of reputed Banks or other organizations and immediately respond to those posts to provide their fake numbers before the company can take note.