Mumbai: Woman wanting to raise complaint against errant auto driver, loses money in phishing fraud

A 51-year-old woman who wanted to raise a complaint against the auto driver working on the platform of a cab aggregator ended up losing nearly Rs 1 lakh in a fraud.

The woman was left midway by the auto driver after which she began looking for the cab from company's customer care number and came across a fraudulent number on the internet instead. The executive, on the pretext of helping the victim, sent her a phishing link and siphoned money from her bank account.

According to the police, on Tuesday, the victim had booked an auto through a cab aggregator to ferry her from Thane to her Khar residence. As per the victim, the auto driver had dropped her at Sion and left.

"The victim contacted the said number and on the pretext of helping the victim and providing her the refund, the 'executive' sent a phishing link to the victim after which the victim lost nearly Rs 1 lakh from her bank account. After having realised that she had been cheated, the victim approached the police and got a complaint lodged in the matter," said a police officer.

The Khar police have registered a case under section 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code, along with sections 66C (punishment for identity theft) and 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.