Cyber fraudsters continue to use different modus operandi to dupe people. Recently, a woman was duped when she went online in search of a courier service. The one she found on the search engine was that of a cyber fraudster who duped her of Rs 81,000.
The victim is a 34-year-old woman from Ghatkopar, who works as an accountant with a Tardeo-based woman's self help group. She wanted to send a pickle box to Banaras in Uttar Pradesh. However, after all her local courier operators refused to deliver the parcel to Banaras, she began looking for courier services online.
Apparently, while searching, she found a courier service that delivers parcels in Uttar Pradesh. When contacted, they asked her to register herself by making a payment of Rs 10. They assured her that, once registered, their delivery boy will come to collect the parcel. In order to register, the caller sent her a link and asked her to download some software and asked her to make a payment of Rs 10.
The fraudster told her to not hang up the call until the completion of the process. After downloading the software, the accountant attempted to pay Rs 10. However, repeatedly her transaction failed. She alerted the caller, who told her it was due to a network issue. After a while, the call got disconnected.
However, when the call was disconnected, she was shocked to receive three messages of transaction from the account and found that Rs 89,100 was withdrawn from her account in three transactions. The accountant first blocked her card and approached the cops.
On her complaint, the Tardeo police registered an offence of cheating (420) and cheating by personation (419) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under the Information Technology Act against an unknown accused. We have written to the service provider for the caller's details and we have also written to the bank for details, said an officer from Tardeo police station.
