Trusting information registered on a caller identification application proved costly for a 38-year-old Ghatkopar resident. The victim received a phone call from an unknown person and his name on the caller ID application reflected as 'bank manager'. The caller identified himself as the manager of the bank in which victim had his account and on the pretext of increasing his debit card validity period, induced the victim to share his card details and OTPs, after which victim lost thousands of rupees within minutes from his bank account.
According to the police, the victim (name withheld on request), works as an account officer in a private company at Masjid Bunder and has his account in a nationalised bank. On Friday when the victim was at his office, he received a phone call from an unknown number and the caller ID application showed caller as 'Pravin Mukherjee Bank Manager'. The caller informed that he was calling from the head office of the bank and told the victim that since victim's debit card was about to expire, he was calling him to get his debit card validity increased and issue him a new card.
"Since the caller ID application showed caller as 'bank manager,' the victim trusted the caller and shared his debit card details such as 16 digit number, expiry date and CVV number to the caller.
The caller told the victim that he would get some OTPs which are meant for verification and asked the victim to share three OTPs as well. Within minutes Rs 21,000 got debited from victim's account. When the victim confronted the caller why money got debited from his account, the caller told him that there seemed to be some system error and money would be credited back in his account shortly. However, when the money didn't got credited in his account, he realised that he has been duped," said a police officer.
He added, the victim immediately went to the nearest branch of his bank and the bank officials asked him to lodge a complaint with the police.
A complaint was lodged on Saturday by the police against unknown person under sections 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (punishment for identity theft) and 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
"Information appearing on such caller ID application can also be fake so one should not rely on such information entirely. Also no bank asks for personal account details over phone. It is a trap people should stay away from," the officer said.
