As the country continues to be in combat mode against coronavirus, online fraudsters have refused to mend their ways and are striking at will. A 33-year old Bhayandar resident, employed with a private consultancy firm in Mumbai became the latest victim of telebanking fraud after getting calls from people pretending to be from a reputed bank in which he has a savings account.
The fraudsters carried multiple transactions to siphon off more than Rs.2.24 lakh from his savings account while eating into his credit card limit. In his complaint to the police the victim stated that he received a call from a person claiming to be a bank official.
The caller told him that his debit-cum-ATM card would become non-operational due to non-submission of Know Your Customer (KYC) documents and to prevent that, he should give his card details, which would be updated on the system.
Despite sensing something fishy, the victim shared details including date of birth, card number, CVV (card verification value). The victim who fell for the trap, also shared the One Time Password (OTP) which had been generated to him on his message box, not once but multiple times, following which more than Rs.1.99 lakh was deducted from his savings account.
However, the fraudster did not stop here and went on to siphon-off Rs 24,998 from his credit card using the same modus operandi. The victim lost a total of Rs 2,24,996 due to the fraudulent transactions executed by the cyber crooks, following which he registered a complaint with the Bhayandar police on Monday.
A case under section 420 of the IPC and the relevant sections of the Information Technology (amended) Act, 2008 has been registered against the unidentified fraudsters, police said. There has been a spurt in such cases. Most victims say they received fraudulent calls from tricksters pretending to be their bank employees.
Officials of the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police commissionerate have appealed people to be extremely cautious before entering into any type of financial transactions with strangers.
