Mumbai Cyber Safe: Woman seeking set-top-box recharge query loses ₹81,000 to online fraud

A 47-year-old woman from Vikhroli, who wanted to resolve the query of her set-top-box recharge, came across a fraudulent customer care number on the internet and the fraudster induced the victim to download a remote access app and siphoned nearly Rs81000 from her bank account.

According to the police, the complainant, a resident of Kannamwar Nagar in Vikhroli (East), on March 5, paid ₹931 for her set-top-box recharge. However, the victim didn't see the money being credited and no message was received from her.

The next day, she surfed the internet for the customer support contact and came across a 'helpline' number. The victim contacted the said number but could not reach the executive.

She then received a phone call from an unknown number and the person claimed to be working from customer care.

Another case of online fraud

When she told the person about her query, the latter told her to download a remote access application on her phone. The victim followed the instructions after which she started getting OTPs and her money was debited in two transactions, police said.

After realising that she had been duped, the woman approached the police and got a complaint lodged in the matter on Tuesday. The police have registered a case on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, identity theft, and cheating by personation by using computer resource, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.

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