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About this tool
Check where a helpline number came from, what the caller is asking for, and what the excess-refund trick costs.
Fake customer care fraud starts before the call: the number is planted on a surface an outsider can write to — a search result, a sponsored ad, a map listing, a reply to your public complaint — and you dial it yourself. This explainer rates each of those sources, marks the requests no genuine support line ever makes (an OTP, a PIN or CVV, a remote-access app, a payment to release a refund), and computes the arithmetic of the overpayment trick where a doctored credit screenshot is used to make you return an excess that never arrived. The safe channels are the ones you already control: the company's own app, the back of your card, a statement you hold.
Open Fake Customer Care Number Explainer on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Add your input to the workspace.
Adjust the options until the result looks right.
Copy or download the output and put it to work.
Sorts each place a number can come from into channels you controlled and surfaces strangers can edit.
Requests like an OTP or a remote-access app end the call outright rather than adding points to a score.
Shows what you would send back against what genuinely landed, so the net loss is a number rather than a feeling.
They are placed deliberately: pages are built to rank for helpline queries, ads are bought for the top slot, map and business listings accept public edits including phone-number changes, and impersonation accounts reply to public complaints within minutes. Ranking or placement is never verification.
From a channel you already control: the contact screen inside the company's signed-in app, the number printed on the back of your card, or a statement or passbook the company issued you. If you use the website, type the address yourself and check it character by character.
Remote-access tools such as AnyDesk or TeamViewer are legitimate software being abused: once connected, the caller can see your screen, watch you type a PIN and read one-time passwords as they arrive. No bank or payment company asks a customer to install one.
Check your own passbook or bank statement rather than their screenshot, and send nothing. If a bank genuinely over-credits an account it reverses the entry itself and writes to you; it never asks a customer to transfer money to an individual. If you have already sent it, call 1930 and file at cybercrime.gov.in immediately.