Not only naive and illiterate people but educated and tech-savvy youngsters are falling prey to the evil designs of cyber-criminals. A 21-year-old student shared one-time passwords (OTP) —not once, twice or thrice, but a whopping 10 times to get cheated of Rs. 86,800.
In his statement to the police, the student said that he received a call from the crook who identified himself as the representative of a reputed digital wallet and online payment application company.
The caller informed the student that he was the winner of a gift voucher that could be redeemed and converted into cash. The caller went on to lure the student into sharing OTP’s and used them to transfer cash amounting to Rs. 86,800 to another bank through fraudulent transactions.
The crooks even threatened the student that if he did not share the OTP’s, his earlier deposits will never be refunded. Notably, the money siphoned off by the crooks was saved by the complainant’s father to fund the medical treatment of an ailing cousin.
Meanwhile, an offence under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information and Technology Act-2000 has been registered against the accused cyber-crooks. Further investigations were underway. The police have been appealing to people to refrain from conducting any type of financial transactions with strangers.
