Action taken against scammers impersonating military officers to defraud inDriver courier delivery riders 

Ride-hailing service inDrive has blocked more than 80,000 accounts from its platform after an organised scam targeted scores of its courier delivery riders. The scam involved unknown individuals impersonating commissioned military officers who would then defraud the delivery riders into sending them money. 

At a media briefing in Lahore, inDrive’s Country Manager for Pakistan, Awais Saeed, said his company initiated an investigation after a number of courier riders complained about losing their money to the scam. After ascertaining a pattern, inDrive has lodged a formal complaint with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Authority (NCCI) office in Islamabad. 

How the scam worked

The scam first emerged around six months ago. As reported by numerous couriers, they would receive an order from a customer on the app for a parcel delivery. Crucially, this customer’s name on the app would appear with a military rank — most often that of Captain or Major. They topped this up with setting the drop-off locations close to Cantt areas, especially in Karachi. This, for the couriers, marked a signal of authority. Disobedience was not really an option. Often such rides were booked at “unusually high fares for short-distance deliveries,” according to a recent press release issued by inDrive. All snares to entrap the unsuspecting.

The customer would then ask the rider to pick the package from, let’s say, a CSD or supermarket. Once the courier had reached the pick-up location, the customer would call them on Whatsapp saying someone was just making the payment inside the supermarket and needed cash for the transaction. The courier rider would be asked to transfer this amount through JazzCash or Easypaisa, and told the person would hand the stuff over to them after which the courier would deliver it to the military officer. 

Often, if the rider expressed discomfort, the person on the other end of the phone would adopt two techniques. The first was to promise extra payment for the favour on top of the already high fare being offered for the delivery. If the driver still expressed unease, the scammers took harsh and peremptory tones, concocting urgency, and ‘ordered’ the rider to pick the parcel and pay for it. The fact that the person making this threat purported to be associated with the Army was intimidating enough.

In some cases, couriers made payments as high as Rs 30,000. Once these payments were made, the number they had been in touch with would block them. There was no one at the location and the address inside the Cantt had been faked as well. The riders had nowhere to go. 

What inDrive did 

Reports started coming in from aggrieved drivers. They were naturally confused and embarrassed about what had befallen them. What made the situation especially poignant is that, hoping for swift remuneration, some riders had even borrowed money to pay for the fake ‘transaction’ in the hope that they would get a reward from the imposter military officer. 

The inDrive management took timely note of this, and started to take measures to curb the possibility of such events occurring as much as they could through the platform itself. They began by blacklisting any accounts that had designations such as “Captain” or “Major” in the name or even abbreviations like “Cap” or “Maj”. All of these accounts were swiftly blocked. They also noticed certain phrases common to such scams and accounts using them were also blocked. Overall, over 80,000 accounts were banned from the platform. Only a handful of people, not even in the double digits, reached out to inDrive to say their accounts had been unjustly blocked, indicating almost all of the 80,000 accounts were from scammers. 

The number alone demands a pause. But it also makes sense. Scams like this need volume more than anything else. It is entirely possible that a lot of inDriver couriers were approached regarding this scam and simply did not want to take the risk or find something suspicious and ignored it. They would have gone on about their day without reporting it. However, if the scammers were working in mass volumes, the likelihood of even a few riders getting scammed was higher. Over time, it would get noticed, but in the short term, the riders were unfortunately swindled out of their money. 

inDrive’s response managed to curtail the problem before it got out of control. Through the platform, awareness campaigns were also run to caution users against such scams. Key characteristics of these scams were highlighted, and the freedom to cancel rides without any penalty – which the inDrive platform offers – was reiterated. Similarly, inDrive’s usage policy, which also explicitly states that couriers should not make payments on behalf of the customers, was also re-emphasized. The company has also been actively increasing the monitoring of any suspicious activity such as unusually high courier fare patterns across cities.

But questions still remain. How did these scammers have access to 80,000 mobile sims to be able to create these accounts? How is so much data so readily and cheaply available? Were these scammers using hacked WhatsApp accounts? 

The investigation

The inDrive management initiated FIRs and took the case up to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA). inDrive coordinated closely with the NCCIA over data sharing and analysis of behavioral patterns, resulting in a few suspects being identified and subsequently apprehended. Currently, these suspects are in judicial custody. The case is still ongoing in Islamabad, and the management of inDrive plans to see it through to the end. 

Not pursuing this case, they argue, would erode the credibility not only of their own platform, but also of the ride-hailing industry in general. But according to the press release issued by inDrive, the matter is even more important since it concerns the wellbeing of their couriers and riders: “Protecting their safety, dignity and earnings remains a top priority, and inDrive is committed to taking firm, visible and sustained action against anyone who seeks to misuse the platform.”

For now, inDrive is focusing on ensuring such scams do not befall their fleet again. “The company stands firmly with its couriers and drivers, and will not tolerate any attempt to exploit or target them. Protecting their safety, dignity and earnings remains a top priority, and inDrive is committed to taking firm, visible and sustained action against anyone who seeks to misuse the platform,” they said in an official statement handed out to the press.