Man duped by fraudster while resetting password of wife's PF account

A 42-year-old man from Borivali fell prey to a cyber-fraud and lost money while resetting the password of his wife's Provident Fund (PF) account through online process. The victim had visited the PF's website and tried contacting the helpdesk number mentioned on the site, but, later, got trapped by a cyber fraud who sent him a phishing link and syphoned money from his bank account. 

According to the MHB Colony police, the complainant had recently visited the PF website in order to reset the password of his wife's PF profile. He had put in the Universal Account Number (UAN) number and tried to reset the password, but was not successful. He then came across a helpdesk number on the website and called it, but he was unable to establish contact or communication on the number. 

Surprisingly, two hours later, the victim received a phone call from an unknown mobile number and asked if the victim had called the helpdesk number and asked what issues the victim was facing. The victim then informed the caller that he wanted to reset the password, after which the caller offered to help and sent the victim a link and asked him to make a payment of Rs 10 as assistance charge, police said. 

As soon as the victim clicked the link and made the payment, he realised that Rs 1.16 lakh had been debited from his account. Having realised that he had been duped, the victim approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Sunday. The police have registered a case on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property and cheating by personation by using computer resources. The police are making efforts to trace the culprit involved.