This is the incident of Bharatpur, Rajasthan. In March 2024, a young man sold his broken mobile phone to a street vendor in exchange for beans. A few days later, the young man received a call from an unknown number and tried to blackmail him over the phone. The boy could not understand where the caller got such personal and sensitive information about him. One such case came to light from Uttar Pradesh's Agra district, where a youth sold two old and dead mobile phones to a hawker in exchange for utensils in February 2024. After this, 20 thousand rupees was demanded from a youth resident of Dewas in Madhya Pradesh using the same phone. When the police investigated the matter, they found that the mobile was in the name of a youth from Agra. In fact, cyber thugs buy bad mobile phones from peddlers. After this, they indulge in cyber scams and blackmailing by doing mobile repair. This method of cyber fraud is very dangerous, because in this the police cannot easily reach the cyber thugs. When a fraud victim complains to the police, the police reaches the real owner of the mobile through the IMEI number. So today in work news we will talk about what kind of precautions should be taken while selling bad or old mobiles? You will also learn that- Expert: Rahul Mishra, Cyber Advisor (Uttar Pradesh Police) Q- What kind of details do cyber criminals steal from mobile phones? Answer- Cyber consultant Rahul Mishra says that every phone has personal information like photos, videos. When the hardware of an old phone gets damaged, most people don't get it repaired because the cost of repairing it is often more than the actual value of the old phone. In such a situation, when a faulty phone comes into the hands of cyber thugs through hawkers, they get it repaired and recover data like photos, videos and contact numbers from it. After this, they can blackmail the real owner of the phone by extracting sensitive personal information from it or commit a criminal act by inserting a new SIM into the phone. Q- How does the network of cyber criminals work? Answer- Cybercriminals target people in villages and small towns through hawkers. They buy old, broken phones from people at very low prices by luring them with fruits, vegetables, plastic items or utensils. Question- What kind of precautions should be taken while selling a bad mobile phone? Answer- Cyber advisor Rahul Mishra says that if your mobile phone is several years old and not working well, then after buying a new phone, first recover data from the old phone. After this, definitely reset the old phone. This will wipe the mobile phone data completely. Also, if the phone is completely damaged and cannot be repaired then selling such a phone should be avoided, as if the phone falls into the hands of a hacker he can recover its data. Q- Where can you sell old mobiles? Answer- Nowadays, there are many authorized online stores to buy old mobile phones at reasonable prices, which sell the old phones to other customers only after formatting the data. Also, one of the advantages of selling phones on official online stores is that the phone seller as well as buyer information is registered with them. OLX: People use it a lot to sell old phones. You can also sell your old phone through this. Here you can easily find customers by uploading phone photo. Cashify: This is an online website, which can help you sell old mobile phones at a fair price. It also has the facility of free pickup. Quikr: In Quikr, both the customer and the seller get a clear payment gateway, which makes payments easy. Amazon: The famous e-commerce platform Amazon also offers the service of selling old mobile phones. You can check the exact price of your phone by visiting the mobile phone section. Q- How to format an old phone? Answer- The method of resetting Android smartphones of all brands is almost the same. Let's know how to reset Android smartphone. Step 1: To reset the phone, first go to the 'Settings' of your mobile. Step 2: After going to Settings, scroll down and you will see the option of 'Backup & Reset'. Click on it. Step 3: After clicking on Backup and Reset, you will find the option of 'Factory Data Reset' below. Click on it. Step 4: After doing this, your phone data will be reset.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
Are you selling your old phone?: Personal data can be stolen, format phone before selling, give away mobile only at authorized online stores
