Mumbai: A 47-year-old man, a resident of Saat Rasta (Jacob Circle) in Mumbai, became a victim of cyber fraud when he mistook a fraudster to be an official of Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) and lost ₹ 55,000. The victim came to know about his mistake only when he approached the Prime Minister's (PM) office in New Delhi who clarified that it's a fraud.
On March 15, Pramod Jadhav who works in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) received a call from one Priya Mishra who claimed to be calling from PMMY department and claimed that they are offering loan between ₹ 50,000 to ₹ 20 lakh to women.
"She reminded me that in 2014 I had received ₹ 2.5 lakh from PM Awas Yojana for rebuilding my house in my native place in Lanja in Ratnagiri district, and claimed that she was calling from the same department, since she already had my details, I belived her to be genuine," said Jadhav.
Jadhav who has also taken loan from BMC for treatement of his son then decided to take the loan and paid ₹ 1000 as processing fee and sent copy of his wife's PAN and Aadhaar card to Mishra.
Next day Mishra called and asked Jadhav to pay ₹ 18,150 for insurance and later charged him ₹ 36,200 for approving the loan amount, after which she sent home loan approval letter in the name of Jadhav's wife.
She then asked Jadhav to pay 6% GST of the total loan amount which amounts to ₹ 1.2 lakh. It was then Jadhav told her that there is no need to pay GST before and asked her to cut the GST amount from the loan itself. However, Mishra denied. Jadhav asked her to return the money he paid so far, since then she stopped responding to him.
Sensing something was amiss, Jadhav wrote to Prime Minister's office. Last week they replied and clarified that it's a fraud. Jadhav then approached the Agripada police and lodged his complaint.
Following the complaint we have registered an offence under the Indian Penal Code sections for cheating by personation (419) and cheating (420) along with section 66D (cheating by personation using computer resources) of the Information Technology act and investigation is underway, said an officer from Agripada police station.
