Saturday, 24 September 2016

Are you using recycled or reissued mobile number?

Are you using recycled or reissued mobile number? 

If you are in habit of frequently changing your mobile numbers (without updating the new mobile number in your bank account, aadhaar ID, PAN Card, Insurance Profile or any other online profiles to receive SMSes) to cheat your creditors then you may have to pass through tough times in the near future as all the latest technologies and applications work with your mobile numbers.

What are the consequences of using recycled or reissued mobile numbers?

Let us suppose that you (Priyanka Chopra - assumed name) are using Mobile Number 98xxxx2345 and Priyanka Chopra has got her mobile number entered in her following profiles:

  • Her Saving bank account with HDFC Bank Ltd
  • Her Car Loan account with ICICI Bank Ltd. and she has defaulted in repayment of Car Loan account. Default 
  • Her PAN card number - PRIYA2345C.
  • Her Addhaar ID No. 2345 xxxx 6789
  • Google, GMail, Facebook, Twitter and other Social Profiles.
Now let us assume that Priyanka Chopra discard her SIM Card with Mobile No.98xxxx2345 without informing the HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, PAN authorities, Aadhaar authorities and Social profiles.

Likely Impact on Priyanka Chopra:

  • She will be deprived of facility of receiving SMS from HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. It is advisable that she should get her fresh mobile number updated in both the bank accounts so that she does not loose the SMS facility.
  • Without getting the fresh mobile number updated in bank accounts she is likely to loose access to OTP for online banking transactions and changing or resetting password.
  • Without updating the fresh mobile in Income Tax profile, Ms. Priyanka Chopra will loose access to resetting passwords in case password in forgotten to efile the Income Tax Return online.
  • Without updating new Mobile Number in Aadhaar, Ms.Chopra will not be able to e-sign or e-verify or e-authenticate any thing like e-verification of IT return, downloading and updation of Aadhaar, activation of JIO sim cards and linking with various government sponsored schemes.
  • In case social profiles of Ms.Priyanka Chopra get hacked then it will become very difficult to recover and retrieve the hacked social profiles without back up phone and discarded phone numbers.

What happens when you use recycled or reissued SIM cards?


Now imagine the situation that Mobile No.98xxxx2345 discarded by Ms.Priyanka Chopra is recycled and reissued by the Mobile Service Provider to someone named Ms.Katrina (assumed name) and she gets her mobile number 98xxxx2345 in her bank accounts with HDFC and State Bank of India. Let us assume that so far Ms.Katrina had not taken any loan from any bank. The following things can happen:

  • She may start receiving SMS from HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank regarding the bank transactions carried out by Ms.Priyanka without updating her new mobile number in her bank accounts.
  • Ms.Katrina will come to know the name of the banks with whom Ms.Chopra was dealing which are HDFC and ICICI in the present example.
  • Ms.Katrina may approach those banks and may some how obtain the statement of accounts of Ms.Chopra by showing the SMSes to the bank officials.
  • She may get access to the priviledged information like customer id etc and may be able to reset the net banking passwords using the priviledged information.
  • Ms.Katrina may approach SBI for taking Car Loan. SBI will obviously pull out the CIBIL Report of Ms.Katrina by using her mobile number (98xxxx2345 which incidently is the discarded mobile number of Ms.Priyanka with defaulted Car Loan with ICICI Bank). There is every possibility that this defaulted Car Loan account of Ms.Priyanka may be reported in the latest report of Ms.Katrina with undisclosed name of lending banker, undisclosed account number etc and Ms.Katrina will find her high and dry to get her CIBIL report modified through a prolonged process of more than 45 days.
  • Ms.Katrina may be able to access and hack the social profiles of Ms.Priyanka Chopra and it can be damaging for Ms.Chopra.
In my opinion the governments should ban reissuing of discarded mobile numbers to new subscribers to safeguard the interests of general public.

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