What are the red flags of this scam?

Your phone suddenly shows 'No service' or 'SIM not provisioned' for hours with no outage on your operator • Family or friends say they got an SMS from your number that you never sent • You receive a 'porting request' SMS or email you did not initiate • Bank, UPI, or email login suddenly asks for re-verification on a new device • Recent phishing call asked for your KYC documents, address, or a 'verification' selfie

What should I do if this happened to me?

If your SIM goes dead unexpectedly, call your operator on another phone immediately and ask if a duplicate SIM was issued — block it • Call your bank's fraud helpline and freeze net banking, UPI, and debit cards before checking balances • Change passwords for email, bank, UPI apps, and social media from a clean device once SIM is restored • File an FIR at the nearest cyber cell — banks need it for chargeback claims • Visit your operator's store with original ID and request a fresh SIM with porting-lock enabled • Report at https://cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930 (national cyber helpline).

CRITICAL phishing Last reported: 17 Oct 2026 Share

Your phone goes dead and money disappears — SIM swap fraud

Q: Is this a scam?

Yes. This is a documented scam pattern. A scammer with your stolen ID copies walks into an Airtel, Jio, Vi, or BSNL store and asks for a duplicate SIM in your number. Your SIM goes dead, theirs activates, all OTPs flow to them, and your bank and UPI accounts get drained within hours.

A scammer with your stolen ID copies walks into an Airtel, Jio, Vi, or BSNL store and asks for a duplicate SIM in your number. Your SIM goes dead, theirs activates, all OTPs flow to them, and your bank and UPI accounts get drained within hours.

Also known as: SIM swap scam, duplicate SIM fraud, SIM jacking, SIM card cloning, porting fraud

Already happened to you? Do this in the next few minutes

Call 1930 now

1 Call 1930 — the national cyber-crime helpline — right now. The sooner you report, the better the chance of freezing the money before it moves.
2 Call your bank to freeze the account and block the card immediately. Use the number printed on your card, never a number from the message or caller.
3 File a report at cybercrime.gov.in and keep every message, screenshot, and transaction ID.

What to do right now

1 If your SIM goes dead unexpectedly, call your operator on another phone immediately and ask if a duplicate SIM was issued — block it
2 Call your bank's fraud helpline and freeze net banking, UPI, and debit cards before checking balances
3 Change passwords for email, bank, UPI apps, and social media from a clean device once SIM is restored
4 File an FIR at the nearest cyber cell — banks need it for chargeback claims
5 Visit your operator's store with original ID and request a fresh SIM with porting-lock enabled
6 Report at https://cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930 (national cyber helpline).

Red flags

⚠ Your phone suddenly shows 'No service' or 'SIM not provisioned' for hours with no outage on your operator
⚠ Family or friends say they got an SMS from your number that you never sent
⚠ You receive a 'porting request' SMS or email you did not initiate
⚠ Bank, UPI, or email login suddenly asks for re-verification on a new device
⚠ Recent phishing call asked for your KYC documents, address, or a 'verification' selfie

Known variants

eSIM activation fraud: caller poses as Airtel/Jio/Vi customer care and sends a 'mandatory eSIM upgrade' or '5G upgrade' link via WhatsApp/SMS. Clicking deactivates the victim's SIM and routes the number to a scammer's eSIM — all OTPs follow. Victims lose savings within hours or across several days of silent drain.

Last seen: 10/17/2026
Reverse eSIM-to-physical-SIM conversion scam: caller posing as bank or telecom official warns your eSIM has a 'security flaw' requiring urgent conversion to a physical SIM. Victims are walked through steps that hand SIM control to fraudsters who drain accounts via diverted OTPs. Cyberabad: interstate gang, 6 arrested June 2026.

Last seen: 6/2/2026
Zero-click SIM porting (June 2026): fraudsters port a victim's number to a new SIM entirely via telecom network-level processes — no call, no link, no interaction needed from the victim. Bengaluru youth lost ₹7.2L without clicking anything. Karnataka HC held BSNL liable for ₹87.7L in a separate case where inadequate telecom verification enabled the fraud.

Last seen: 6/13/2026
Telecom POS-agent supply chain (June 2026): an insider POS agent activates a second duplicate SIM per customer using Aadhaar data, sells extras for ₹500 each to criminal networks who connect them to Southeast Asian roaming (Cambodia/Myanmar) for digital arrest and investment fraud. Mumbai court denied bail; 100+ fraudulent SIMs recovered.

Last seen: 6/21/2026

Already happened to you? Do this in the next few minutes

What to do right now

Red flags

Known variants

Sources