Mumbai Cyber Safe: Software engineer loses ₹42,000 after sharing OTP to fake bank employee

Mumbai: The N.M Joshi Marg police have registered an FIR against two unidentified persons for allegedly duping a 31-year-old software engineer of ₹42,000.

The matter surfaced on April 19 when the complainant, Namrata Panchal approached the police alleging that she lost the money from her bank account after she received a call from a person identifying himself as Rahul Arora and claiming to be the bank manager.

Bank wanted to “Initiate a refund”

Arora told her that the bank wanted to “initiate a refund” as it had “accidentally” auto-debited ₹9,500 from her account and that she would receive a call from another person to initiate the refund.

Within 15 minutes, she received a call from a person claiming to be Rohit Arora, claiming himself as the bank employee and got her number from Rahul Arora. He initially stated that Panchal should not share her credit card details and One Time Password (OTP) with any one.

Sharing credit card details, OTP "regular procedure," says fraudster

But Rohit stated that he needs her credit card details and the OTP as it is “regular procedure” for initiating the refund process. She believed in him and shared all the details.

However, within minutes she got a text message stating that Rs 21,475 had been debited from her account.

After sometime she received another message stating Rs 21,272 had been debited. She called back the number, but there was no reply. She realised that she had been duped.

She then lodged a complaint with the N M Joshi Marg police, who have registered an offence under relevant sections of the IPC. Further investigations are on.