Mumbai: Man loses ₹91,000 resolving WhatsApp issue for kin

Mumbai: A 31-year-old man looking to help a relative in troubleshooting WhatsApp issues ended up losing Rs91,000 within minutes, via three different transactions. According to the police, a relative who visited the man on March 11 told him that the WhatsApp app was not working on his cell phone. The man surfed the internet for a helpline number to resolve the issue and came across a 'WhatsApp helpline' number. The fraudster who answered shared a link with the man and asked him to make a transaction of Rs2, which he did.

The next day, the man received transaction alert messages from his bank, informing him that a total of Rs91,000 had been debited from his account. Since he had not made these transactions, he approached the police and got a complaint registered. He also shared details of the beneficiary accounts in which the money was transferred fraudulently. A case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act has been registered.

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.