Nagda: Beware! Use e-wallet carefully, cyber crooks on the prowl

Nagda (Madhya Pradesh): There is a sudden increase in the number of incidents related to cyber frauds in the town. A well-known sweetshop owner, cement businessmen, and a farmer fell victim to cyber frauds in the past few days. A woman in town is the latest victim of the cyber crooks.

In the last couple of months, there have been about half a dozen incidents of cybercrimes. The fraudsters from other states conned people here by making lucrative business offers and then disappearing with lakhs from their bank accounts. Using digital payment wallets like Google-pay, phone-pay and other e-wallets, the cyber criminals have duped people and withdrawn lakhs of rupees from their bank accounts linked to these online transaction apps. The police administration has appealed to people to remain vigilant while making online transactions and have warned against sharing OTP (One Time Password) to any unknown person.

Around a month ago, a sum of Rs 2 lakh was fraudulently withdrawn from Google-pay account of a sweetshop owner †in the town.

Similarly, a reputed cement businessman here received a call to share an OTP but the vigilant trader asked the caller to come in person to Nagda and take all the required details he wanted to make changes in his bank account. However, two other businessmen were not so lucky as they ended up losing Rs 2 lakh and Rs one lakh respectively. Recently, a woman was duped of Rs 15,000 online.

The Modus Operandi

Local cyber cell police investigating online frauds said that the cybercriminals look for their potential targets on Google. They would look for reputed businessmen in small towns, search their number and get other business details to con them.

They would then approach a local businessman on phone and while talking work would take numbers of other local traders known to him. The crooks would then call the other local traders giving reference of local businessman who shared his (trader) number. The other trader thinking that the caller is someone known to the local businessman, would entertain him.

The crook would then lure the trader with high return business ideas and then dupe him once he gets into the deal. Usually, the cybercriminals and imposters pretend to be associated with the army, police, insurance company, banks and other firms. The caller would introduce himself as a bank officer and would share some link on google-pay, phone-pe or other payment app or send some OTP.

The gullible person taking him for a bank employee would click on the sent link or share the OTP. The person would† end up losing lakhs of rupees from a bank account linked with the digital e wallet. And then there is no trace of the caller. Most of the cyber frauds are operating from other states and so it is becoming very difficult to trace and catch them, said police.

Police warns against cyber frauds

Nagda Mandi police station in-charge Shyamchandra Sharma, has appealed to all citizens not to share OTP they receive on mobile to unknown persons. Warning against OTP sent from an unknown source, the officer said that the user should be very careful as it might be generated by some hacker trying to gain access to the bank account online.

If an OTP is generated even when no online transaction is initiated then the person should become very vigilant and never share it with any caller even if he/she tells them that they are calling from bank. One should ask the caller to personally come and visit for any account related work.

Any person who falls victim to online fraud should immediately approach their bank and also report the crime to the local police cyber cell, said Sharma. He said that the district cyber cell investigates crime up to Rs 2 lakh, while the cases of higher amounts are investigated by the state cyber cell.