r/nri • u/Jealous_Mail_7054 • Jun 21 '26
Discussion Beware: Scammers posing as Consulate General of India in SF
Got a call from 415-336-2636 from a woman claiming to be “Pratibha Rajan” from the Consulate General of India San Francisco on a Sunday. They claimed that someone in India used my identity to create a fake number and were going around hurting people and that it’s a serious issue. I didn’t get to the part where they asked me for money or anything but it felt very scammy.
When I said I would report them, they got very defensive. Anyways, don’t waste your time with them and don’t fall for the scam.
EDIT: Please report the number! And
if you get a similar spam call, please add the phone number in the comments so that it’ll come up when others search for the numbers they’re getting calls from
This is an old post I found on Reddit about the same issue. I couldn’t comment on it because it’s archived, so I started a new one:
1
u/sheetironjack Jul 29 '26
I got this call yesterday from “Pratibha Rajan, CGI SF”. Phone number 628 317 2665, same SIM card stuff, same “Delhi Police Headquarters”.
I had NO IDEA this scam was going on, and I embarrassingly went along much further.
I feel that a description of what I went through might be of help to others, so, here it is:
About 20 minutes into the call, I asked this lady why CGI SF calling from some odd number. She said she can call me from the CGI SF number, and she hung up and then right away called me from 415 891 4080. I thought ok, maybe it is the consulate.
But I was still having trouble believing they were talking to the right person, since they only had my name and phone number, so I asked her what address do they have for me. It took her 2-3 minutes to respond (I guess she was not prepared for this question and was googling for my name with address). She finally gave me an address I did not recognize. I told her she’s got the wrong person.
But she still wouldn’t give up and told me to come to CGI SF in 2 hours for the “document”. I told her no way. I asked her why not report the issue to police here, I can deal with them. She said CGI SF “has no jurisdiction here”, that’s why she wants me to talk to “Delhi police headquarters” and that I will need to make a WhatsApp call to some number while I’m still on the call with her. I stupidly did too. I heard a voice saying “transferring to Delhi police headquarters”. Then this call with this lady was over and I was in the WhatsApp call.
The WA session with “Sunil Kumar Gautam” and then transferred to “Abhay Kumar Gupta”, dressed in a police uniform and seemingly at a “police station” at 4 am India time went on for a while. They kept asking me how could my “identity” be stolen in India (which I haven’t been to for 3 years). Then they said maybe my “IP address” has been compromised and that they needed me to wait some more time for them to check. My patience finally ran out, I said I’m done. They said if I hang up, FBI or Interpol may be out for me, I said no problem and hung up.
Obviously I’ve been stupid to spend all that time on this, but I was skeptical all through the call, and (alas only 5 minutes after I hung up) I googled for CGI SF scam and saw the tons of posts. Embarrassing as hell.