Mumbai: A senior citizen who had applied for a US visa has lost Rs1.79 lakh to cyber criminals. According to Kandivali police, Ashwini Shah, 72, had applied for a US visa. The visa was supposed to be delivered by Blue Dart courier on Monday, but it got delayed. Shah searched the customer care number of Blue Dart on Google but could not find it.
Later, he received a phone call from someone who claimed to be from the courier company. He told Shah that the courier would arrive soon, but he would have to deposit Rs2 as fee.
Rs 2 debited initially
The caller sent Shah a link and asked him to download an app.
As Shah tried to deposit Rs2 in the company’s purported account, he received a notification stating that Rs1 lakh had been debited from one of his accounts. He then got a second message stating that Rs79,000 had been debited from his second account.
Shah told his daughter, who called the bank and blocked both accounts.
Shah then approached the police and filed a complaint. The police said an FIR has been registered under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 66(c) and 66(d) of the IT Act.
Mumbai police cautions citizens
According to Cyber Crime Cell under Crime Branch of Mumbai police , the most common form of online frauds are related to banks, online commerce platforms where fraudsters, posing as bank /platform officials, convince the victim to share OTP, KYC updates and sometimes send the links to be clicked to access bank accounts.“People should know that no bank or institution is authorised to demand for bank details or PIN numbers. Unfortunately, educated people are falling prey to online frauds and losing lakhs of rupees,” explained DCP Cyber Crime, Balsingh Rajput
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