Mira-Bhayandar: Looking for courier service, woman loses Rs 78,000 to cyber crooks

Mira-Bhayandar: A 34-year-old woman from Mira Road became the latest target of cyber-criminals, who impersonated courier service executives over the phone and tricked her into clicking a link following which Rs 78,000 was siphoned-off from her bank account.

In her statement to the police, the complainant, who works from home for a private company in Mumbai, said that she wanted to deliver a laptop on behalf of her company to Bengaluru.

She searched for the number of a reputed courier service on the search engine and ended up calling the cyber-fraudsters who had apparently uploaded their own numbers.

The fraudster made her download and install a remote access application and then asked her to pay Rs 5 as processing fees, 30 minutes later Rs 5,000 was deducted from her bank account. When questioned, the fraudster assured her that he would reimburse the amount within 24 hours.

However, two days later, Rs 68,000 was siphoned from her account through 13 fraudulent transactions. Realising she was duped; the woman registered a complaint with the Naya Nagar police station in Mira Road.

An offence under the relevant sections of the IPC and Information Technology Act has been registered against the cyber criminals. Further investigations were under way.

Cyber criminals have managed to upload their numbers as customer care helplines of various establishments, including banking institutions and e-marketplaces.