Indore (Madhya Pradesh): If you get out of cash and get an online app offering non-collateral loan with the easiest terms and conditions which will be provided easily, beware! You may be sucked into a whirlpool of fraud and deceit in which fraudsters will rip your pocket or will defame you at the extreme.
Cyber crime in the city has gradually increased and, now, on an average, 18 cases of online fraud and cheating are reported daily. However, fraudsters have now switched to newer methods of cheating on the lure of giving loans and syncing data from your device. They use this data to blackmail a person even after a loan is fully paid up to extract more money from the loanees.
Deputy commissioner of police (Crime) Nimish Agrawal, while talking to Free Press, said, “Cyber crime has taken on a new form and it’s increasing rapidly.” Despite many awareness drives by cops, people are still influenced by fraudsters and get cheated of their money.
Agrawal said that, in loan frauds, fraudsters upload applications on the Playstore where there is no authentication process of the application and only viruses in the application are scanned. When the victim downloads the application, the app asks for a few permissions and then syncs the data of the device which includes phone numbers, photographs and such other things.
The apps give great loan offers which can convince a person. When a person applies for the loan, it gets easily approved and the money gets transferred to the person’s account. The loan amount remains very low—from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000 at high rates of interest, ranging from 30 per cent to 50 per cent.
In this process, the lender obtains all the valuable data of a person. And, when the loan gets paid by the person, the fraudsters approach him/her saying they have to pay more interest or capital amount to the lender. If the person refuses to do so, they blackmail them saying they will take strict action. The fraudsters threaten to share secret and personal photos of the person with his/her contacts which the app has synced from their phonebook. “In some cases, it’s been reported that the app operators Photoshop the victim’s photo with a pornographic image and circulate it to the WhatsApp numbers of their contacts,” said Agrawal.
Nimish Agrawal, DCP, Crime Branch | FP Photo
‘This year, more than 3,000 cases of fraud have been reported so far—more than double that in the same period last year. The Crime Branch has been continuously solving the cases and trying to get the victims their lost money back. As the cases are increasing rapidly, the policetoo, are solving as many cases as possible and arresting the accused. People should remain alert before sharing any details with anyone unknown or downloading any application’
— Nimish Agrawal, DCP, Crime Branch
Cyber crime rose in India by 31 %
According to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, a rise of 31% in cyber crime in the first quarter of 2022 was observed, compared to that in the first quarter of 2021.
A total of 206,153 complaints of cyber crime were reported in the first quarter (January-April) of 2022.
In 2021, 50,000+ UPI fraud complaints were reported in the first quarter, while, in 2022, there are 113,000 UPI frauds reported in the first quarter nationwide.
A total of 43,000+ debit/credit card frauds and SIM-swapping frauds were reported in the last quarter in India, while only 19,000+ cases were reported last year.
Internet banking frauds also rose by 14%-15%.
Of the total crime cases, 66% were of online financial frauds.
