Exploiting people in the name of jobs has become a prevalent issue today. We recently made a detailed article which highlighted the ongoing data entry job scam. Thus, this article also focusses on one such scam which several people have been facing in our country which is the Mobile Tower Installation Fraud. This racket is so enormous that Wikipedia has a separate page for it too. Mobile tower fraud is sometimes also called mass marketing fraud since people use mass marketing communication tools such as the internet, telephone and email to commit these frauds.
Table of Contents
What is the Modus Operandi of the mobile tower installation fraud?
- To reach more and more people for exploitation, the mobile tower installation fraudsters usually use advertising in the form of – newspaper ads, display ads on various websites, bulk SMS service and Google ads. Google ads are the results you find on Google search results page, at the top of the page with a small “AD” mark against it.
- The scammers use fake company names and websites which are eerily similar to the licensed telecom service providers and reputed infrastructure provider companies in India. Many fake websites relating to mobile tower installation are active for brands like Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, etc. Some examples of these fake mobile tower installation websites are – Jio Tower Project, Infra Jio 4G, Mobile Tower Group.
- At first glance, these fake websites seem completely real and professional. The list of documents, customer testimonials, gallery of images, contact details – everything appears perfectly. Hence, it is easy to think that these are websites of genuine mobile tower installation companies.
- As soon as a person approaches these websites by filling their online form or contacting them on their phone number, the fraud process begins. The complete plan consists of a set script. This plan has different characters like – office staff, surveyor, engineer, advocate, government authorities, managing director, transporter and more. Unknown to the person, all these characters might be sitting together in the same room playing their parts. Or they might all even be the same person, fooling the approacher in front of them through different voices. This part is easy since all communication happens over phone calls, emails, or online chats.
- In the majority of these mobile tower installation fraud cases, the victims are informed that a surveyor or engineer would visit the site for inspection. But the victim has to deposit a small amount of money before that. This amount can be asked in the form of advance for inspection, processing fee, DOT/TRAI NOC certificate, government tax, or even service tax or GST. To make this scenario seem more plausible, the scammers can also call them to inform that their area was viewed via satellite and is perfect for mobile tower installation.
- In some rare cases, an actual person also visits the victim to check on the site.
- A bunch of papers are sent to the victims to show them the importance of the matter. These can be a copy of the mobile tower agreement, terms and conditions, forged government documents like TRAI policy and NOC certificate, transportation papers, or insurance papers. The whole set up is to show that all legal documents are ready and just waiting for the process of payment for completion.
- Sometimes scammers may also harass the victims to hurry up the payment process. Or else they might move onto another candidate.
- Eventually, when the payment process is complete, all the contact numbers stop working. There is no further communication from the fake mobile tower installation firm. And the payment is also not traceable anymore.
How to detect this mobile tower installation fraud?
Since this scam is prevalent on such a large scheme, the Department of Communication itself has issued a public awareness notice, stating the dos and donts. These preventive measures are as follows:
- DOT does not have any direct or indirect involvement in acquiring locations for mobile tower installations. Furthermore, they do not issue any NOC certificate for this cause either.
- Only Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) or Infrastructure Providers (IPs) can install mobile towers in this country. These are limited to some 500 TSPs and 50 IPs. The full list is available here. So always confirm your point of contact with the names given in this list.
- In case any individual or company s asking for any advance payment before the mobile tower installation, then one should be extra cautious of them being fake.
- If any person is a victim of this fraud then they can report the incident to their local police authorities. Alternatively, they can also complain at their local telecommunication office (TERM Cell). The details of which are given here.
Is it actually possible to have a mobile tower installation at one’s place?
The concept might seem feasible for having a contract for 10-20 years, which minimum work. But is their actually any possibility of having a mobile tower installation at your premises? After a chat with our source who has a mobile tower installation at their house we came to know the following things:
- The location for having mobile tower installations is fixed by the telecom companies. They will only do it in places where the demand is high and there is a low signal. If your area already has a good signal strength of the telecom provider then they will not waste money on installing another mobile tower there.
- The actual tower rentals are not very high. It can range from Rs 5000-7000 in rural areas to Rs 15,000-20,000 in Tier 2 cities. Or Rs 30,000-50,000 in densely populated Tier 1 cities.
List of some fake mobile tower installation frauds
- https://www.mobiletowerinstallations…. Email: info@mobiletowerinstallations.com +919088356020
- http://www.hindustantowerspvtltd.com/ +918059560224
- https://skytechdiginetworksolutions.com/ +91-8630160078
- https://www.allindiatowerinstallation… +91-9749076702, 7044642714
- http://hindustantowersolution.com +91 7044511279
- http://dtldigitaltower.com/ +91 8059560851 info@dtldigitaltower.com
- https://www.jiotowerproject.com/http://infrajio4g.com/https://mobiletowergroup.com/
How to get back at these fraudsters?
- Firstly, search for mobile tower installation on Google. Click on all the “Ads” which appear on the results page. This will send ad revenue to Google and deplete the monetary sources of the scammers without any actual leads.
- Get in touch with these scammers and humour them and waste their time.
- Share our video on this topic below and make more people aware of this situation.
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