A 66-year-old retired school teacher living in Bhayandar (east) became the latest victim of an online fraud after he was duped by the crooks under the pretext of updating the debit card details of his savings account in one of the largest government-owned banks of India.
In his statement to the police, the complainant who retired from a municipal school in Mumbai said that he received a call from a person who identified himself as the manager of the bank in which he had opened a savings account.
On the pretext of updating his bank debit card details, the caller sought personal information of his card to avoid a penalty amounting to Rs 4,000. Unaware of the fraud, the senior citizen gave away all details including- 16-digit card number, 3-digit Card Verification Value (CVV) number along with the One Time Password (OTP) number which came on his phone.
A while later, the complainant received a message of Rs 5,000 being debited from his account. However, the crooks did not stop here and brazenly called up the target again. This time a person pretending to be the chief manager cunningly convinced him to repeat the process in order to get his amount credited back into his account.
The complainant complied and lost another Rs 45,000, following which he apprised bank officials about the incident and registered a complaint with the local police station. “A case under section 420 of the IPC and relevant sections of the Information Technology (amended) Act, 2008 has been registered at the Navghar police station against the unidentified fraudsters.” confirmed a police officer. Further investigations were underway.
