The insurance regulator has issued a public notice cautioning policyholders from spurious sales calls.
Miffed by the poor response of awareness drive on spurious calls, IRDA has issued a public notice in which it has asked policyholders not to fall prey to fraudulent callers posing as IRDA employees to sell insurance policies. In addition, the insurance regulator has urged people to lodge an FIR with the police if they receive such spurious phone calls.
Earlier this year, IRDA had instructed insurance companies to publish a warning in their advertisements from March 1, 2014 in a bid to check fraudulent sales calls. The warning highlights that IRDA is not involved in selling and marketing of insurance policies. The insurance companies were also directed to send SMS to the policyholders advising them not to respond to fraudulent calls by any person posing as IRDA employee. Also, insurers were asked to put a notice on their websites.
Despite these efforts, IRDA observed that such instances of spurious calls have drastically increased. In the public notice, IRDA said that it has observed that the policyholders are still receiving such calls.
The callers lure policyholders claiming that IRDA is distributing bonus to them and the money has been mistakenly transferred to another policyholder’s account. They are then asked to complete certain formalities to receive their bonus. These callers also ask policyholders to deposit some money, buy new policies to avail gifts, promotional offers, interest free loans, etc.
In order to caution policyholders, the insurance regulator has issued modus operandi and a few sample audios of such calls for the benefit of public.