The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has warned citizens about a rising number of scam calls being made through fake or modified UAN numbers, using spoofing techniques to appear as official helplines.
The authority said these fraudulent calls are designed to mislead people into believing they are being contacted by legitimate organisations, with the aim of extracting sensitive personal and financial information.
PTA clarified that official UAN numbers and helplines are never used to make outgoing calls. Any call received from a UAN number or a look alike number should therefore be treated as fake, it said.
According to the authority, scammers often use official looking caller IDs and falsely claim that a person’s SIM card, bank account, or digital wallet will be blocked unless immediate action is taken.
PTA said fraudsters frequently impersonate officials from organisations such as PTA, Federal Investigation Agency, NCCI, banks, and digital wallet services including JazzCash and Easypaisa.
These callers typically ask for one-time passwords, CNIC details, PIN codes, passwords, biometric information, or request access to mobile applications. In some cases, victims receive fake WhatsApp messages or SMS links directing them to phishing or malware-infected websites.
The authority stressed that no official organisation ever asks for OTPs, banking details, CNIC information, mother’s name, passwords, or biometric data over phone calls or messages.
PTA advised citizens to ignore suspicious calls and messages, verify information only through official websites, avoid clicking unknown links, and report suspicious numbers immediately. Users were also encouraged to enable spam blocking features on their mobile phones to reduce the risk of falling victim to such scams.