How I saved ₹1 lakh from health insurance fraudsters disguised as official representatives

You might have encountered insurance telecallers mis-selling health and other policies. These sellers are using newer tricks to trap customers. A team of telecallers tried one such trick on me today (May 6, 2025). But I managed to save myself from them and saved ₹1 lakh in my two savings bank accounts.

For the benefit of readers, I have narrated below the entire incident, the red flags I noticed during the call, and the steps I took to safeguard myself.

1. The call

Normally, I don't answer calls from unknown numbers. I have an app on my phone that shows if the caller is a spammer.

However, today, I received a call from a number that initially didn't appear as a spam call but showed up as a spam number when I checked it after the call.

It was the spammer's lucky day that I answered the call.

2. The trap

The first caller on the other side was a woman who introduced herself as "Priyanka" from the HDFC Bank Credit Card department with Employee ID: P98467

She told me that within 25 minutes, ₹89,000 was going to be charged to my credit card and subsequently from my savings bank accounts linked to my Aadhaar card. If someone told you that, you would be shocked, right?

I was shocked too for a few seconds. But then I asked “why”?

She said I have an HDFC ERGO "lifetime" health insurance policy purchased in 2014, for which no premium has been paid for the last two years. Since I have neither paid the premium nor closed the policy, a penalty of ₹89,000 will be charged to my credit card, and subsequently from my savings accounts, within 25 minutes.

She further said the policy is linked to my credit card, and I have not paid the premium for two years despite reminders.

However, she gave me an option to follow the proper procedure for the closure of the policy and suggested talking to a "senior" person in the HDFC Ergo insurance department.

At this stage, I noticed a few red flags:

I should have dropped the call, knowing that it was a scam call. Yet I played along, just to know more about them, and asked her to transfer the call.

3. Call transfer

She transferred the call to a person claiming to be Manish Gupta from HDFC Ergo Insurance.

Surprisingly, Gupta had a lot of details about me. And said the policy was sold to me by some agent in 2016, and that “it’s a lifetime policy” valid for 80 years. He said I can either pay a ₹89,000 penalty, which will keep repeating after every two years, or I can follow the proper closure procedure.

He even shared a policy number and sent an OTP for verification from “JM-HDFCGI” (which is the official sender from which you receive OTP when logging in to the HDFC ERGO website).

Interestingly, the message itself said, “HDFC ERGO never asks for OTP and urges you not to share passwords with anyone.”

So I told this person that I would not share OTP as I suspect him to be a scamster and that even HDFC ERGO is telling me not to share it with anyone. He took it lightly, not trying to force me to share the OTP, probably knowing that I would call him out.

Instead, he said it’s just a procedure to get the customer’s consent for further steps.

Though I suspected everything he was saying, yet I had a moment of self-doubt: “What if someone has mis-sold me some policy?” But, how can I not know, and why didn’t I get any mail from HDFC ERGO?

When I told him that I don’t know about any such policy, and I have not received any email or message from HDFC ERGO about any pending policy amount due, he tried to take me into confidence, saying an agent in the past may have sold me a policy and not let mails from HDFC ERGO reach me, so that I wouldn’t know about the penalty.

He even told me that I must not tell anyone about this conversation. Interesting? At this point, I hit the recording button on my phone. I should have done it earlier, but I missed it.

By now, I was convinced that this was a scam call. Yet I played along, hoping for some more masala from this person.

I then asked him what I should do to close the so-called policy. He said he would convert the policy from a lifetime plan to a one-year plan, for which I will need to pay the premium as EMIs for a year, and after 12 months, I can close or continue the policy.

In the meantime, I would continue to get the policy coverage. This process would be done online through email once I gave consent (which meant sharing the OTP!).

What would be the premium?

Initially, he said the premium would be ₹39,000 for a year, which he could reduce to ₹32,000, using his “manager ID”. I negotiated further, and he said the final premium will be ₹25,000. At this point, I made an excuse of getting a call from my office and put him on hold.

I checked the policy number in my records, there was no such policy in my name.

Suspecting my accounts might have been compromised, I first blocked the credit card, which was anyway due for renewal in two months. I then transferred the amount from my savings account to my wife's account.

About 10 minutes passed, and the spammer called again.

It was the woman who had called earlier. This time, she was shouting, trying to pressure me, saying I would be responsible if ₹89,000 was charged to my credit card and savings accounts.

I continued the conversation, requesting her to reduce the premium, as I can't pay the high amount. She again transferred the call to “Manish Gupta”, who surprised me by saying the time limit for the deduction of ₹89,000 has been extended by an hour and that I should make the decision fast. I requested him to reduce the premium. This time he agreed to reduce the monthly premium to ₹2,000 and then told me, it will be an ICICI Lombard policy for one year!

"What? ICICI Lombard? But you are from HDFC ERGO, right?" I asked.

He said he is from HDFC ERGO, but since I was asking for a lower premium, he would offer me a cheaper policy from a “partner company,” ICICI Lombard.

At this point, I thought to call out their bluff and told him he can deduct whatever amount he wants from my account, and I will file a case against them if it happens. He immediately cut the call.

4. After the call

I called HDFC ERGO's official customer care number just to check if there is any such policy. I informed them about the spam call and recorded the conversation for future reference.

I have saved all the recordings, which I plan to share with HDFC ERGO via email later. I have also changed the passwords for all my bank accounts and email ids.