Today I received a call from an unknown number who said he and his family were in a financial trouble as he had mistakenly told Easy Paisa merchant my number that happens to be very similar to his wife's. While the recipient CNIC was correct, his much needed 3,000 rupees were stuck. If I could help, this error could be addressed and his family would be able to receive the money.

Having a trusting nature, I thought I'd just have to see if I received a message from Easy Paisa's official number (i.e. 3737). I said I'll check it right away and tell him while he's on the line with me. He was saying that it'd perhaps require talking to the shopkeeper towards whom he's going right then. I saw in my inbox a message from 3737 saying: "Oops! Transaction Failed. You did not authorize the payment from your Mobile Phone by entering the 5-digit Easypaisa Account PIN. Merchant: Heritage Jewellers PKR 3,000.00 Order ID - 9176".

I thought it must be legit and said ok call when you get to the shopkeeper.

He called back about 15 minutes later and I could hear a change in voice as he apparently gave phone to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper too said I'm a great person to help the poor man out and his family would be grateful for this. This started alarm bells in my head. Why would a Easy Paisa merchant, who're usually too busy to even look up from their counters, use the same sympathetic words?

I use Easy Paisa account for personal use and had a little more than 4,800 rupees in my Easy Paisa account. Still I thought the person is legit but something is fishy about maybe the shopkeeper. While he had continued on to instruct me that I'll receive a message from 3737 which I need to tell him exactly as it's case sensitive. I cut him off and said I need 2 minutes and will get back. I cut off the call and transferred 4,800 rupees to my brother's account.

A little relieved that whatever it was would not affect the money I had, I called back. The guy said the shopkeeper is busy and he'd call back and repeated his speech on how poor he is and how grateful he is for me in this time of crisis.

He did call back. The shopkeeper again repeated instructions. I received a message from 3737 which I repeated. The next message was from Connect ID (perhaps a partner security system of Telenor). The message had a clear warning to not share the PIN in that. Now I started feeling stupid. What am I doing!

I calmed myself as the shopkeeper's tone was too urgent to be normal. Perhaps the prospect of getting a jackpot (he would not be stopping at 3,000 for the poor guy), perhaps he was tense that the PIN was time sensitive (this turned out to be true).

I asked the shopkeeper how come he's so eager to help? How come it's not a simple four dogit code? He immediately gave the phone to the 'poor' guy and said I should talk to him. By this time I was furious. I said this seems like a Con and said to him that I work for a uniformed organization ( I do not).

After cutting call from him I dialed 3737 which I should have done beforehand. The call center staff was clearly used to hearing from people like me. Others not so lucky and more cooperative to the 'poor' guys. He told me my PIN was now blocked as the shopkeeper had attempted to reset it.

My 4,800 is safe with my brother (no twist as of now that my brother is with the 'poor' guys).

Boy, his voice acting was really good.