Pre-texting Scams - Origin, Occurrence, Scale, Extent, Reporting and Precautions in Indian

The results indicate that pre-texting scams have occurred in India under the influence of several factors including but not limited to increase in digital adoption, a little public awareness, and less regulatory enforcement. The study identifies common practices like phishing calls, fake customer support, lost calls, and fraudulent links as well as the psychological vulnerabilities exploited by these con artists. Even though the economic and emotional damages to most victims have been enormous, under-reporting is widely prevalent due to associated stigma, ignorance, and trust deficit in law enforcement.Based on this analysis, this study prescribes a multi-pronged approach for dealing with the problem. Salient recommendations include enhancing public cybersecurity literacy, strict enforcement of laws and penalties against cybercrime, better technological safeguards including fraud detection systems, and collaboration between financial institutions, telecom service providers, and law enforcement organizations. In doing so, they are likely to penetrate deeper insights into pretexting scams and actionable task prescriptions for prevalence reduction in overall society and individual people. Keywords— Customer perception, satisfaction of customers, m-commerce, m-shopping applications, e-commerce, trust in m-commerce, secure payment, user experience, variety of products, speed of delivery, customer support, digital retail, purchasing behavior, personalized recommendations, mobile technologies, online shopping trends, India retail market.