Work from home and online studies owing to the current global pandemic, seems to have created a perfect environment for cyber-criminals to flourish. As cyber cases continue to pile up at local police stations, very few are solved.
A 19-year-old student became the latest target of cyber-criminals in Bhayandar. In his complaint to the Navghar police, the girl’s father who works in a private housing finance company stated that the cyber-criminals siphoned off Rs. 49,520 from their bank account under the guise of solving mobile network issues.
After facing issues with facility glitches in outgoing calls and network connectivity in the sim-card of a reputed services provider used by his daughter, the complainant tweeted the problem as it was affecting online studies of his daughter.
A few days later, his daughter received a call from a person who introduced himself as the customer care representative of the mobile service provider who was assigned to resolve the glitches. After asking her to switch the sim with her father’s phone, he asked to download a quick support application from the play store.
The girl complied and the encounter ended in fraudulent transfers amounting Rs. 49,520 from her father’s bank account. An offence under section 420 (cheating) of the IPC along with section 66-D (cheating by personation using computer resources) of the Information Technology Act has been registered at the Navghar police station. Further investigations were underway.
