Mumbai Cyber Safe: Shweta Menon among 40 fall prey to bank account fraud, actress duped of ₹57,600

Actress Shweta Menon recently fell prey to bank account fraud in Mumbai after clicking on a spam link which she received on her phone as a text message.

Menon is among at least 40 other victims who have been duped of several lakh rupees within three days through this bank account fraud. Nearly all the victims belong to a single private bank.

Menon lost ₹57,600 from two of her accounts after which she filed a police complaint in Khar and flagged the issue with her bank.

'Dear customer your Bank ACCOUNT has Been Blocked Today Please Update your PAN CARD https://rb.gy/x5tvws," the message read.

Mumbai Cyber Police warns citizens

Mumbai cyber police have issued a warning to everyone in the city not to fall prey to such messages.

"I learned the hard way after losing money. Luckily, the sum that I lost did not run into lakhs of rupees. The scamster stole my banking details after I clicked the link and entered two OTPs, a Pan card number, a net banking ID and a password.

"Soon, two fraud fund transfers were carried out. As I clicked the link, I received a call from a person claiming to be a bank telecaller and instructing me to enter the OTP.

"He tried to keep me engaged in the call. But I smelled something wrong when I received two transaction alerts. I immediately disconnected the call," Menon told the Times of India.

Mumbai Cyber Safe:

According to Cyber Crime Cell under Crime Branch of mumbai police , the most common form of online frauds are related to banks, online commerce platforms where fraudsters, posing as bank /platform officials, convince the victim to share OTP, KYC updates and sometimes send the links to be clicked to access bank accounts.

“People should know that no bank or institution is authorised to demand for bank details or PIN numbers. Unfortunately, educated people are falling prey to online frauds and losing lakhs of rupees,” explained DCP Cyber Crime , Balsingh Rajput.