Mumbai: A 32-year-old man went through a nightmare after he mistakenly clicked on a loan app link. Once the app got installed on the phone, he even received Rs1.03 lakh credit, which he never asked for. Still, to get rid of abusive and threatening calls from recovery agents, the man unwillingly paid the loan amount along with interest.
However, his ordeal didn't end as the offenders shared his morphed obscene photograph with his relatives in a bid to exact more money. Fed up with constant harassment, the man lodged a complaint and has provided at least 35 phone numbers, through which the recovery agents contacted him, to the police.
Duped with loan app
On March 19, the Dahisar resident received a link on his phone and he clicked on it by mistake. The link directed him to a loan app and after giving permissions to access his phone gallery and contact list, the app got installed on the man's phone. Since then till April 14, Rs1.03 lakh got credited in the complainant's bank account in different installments. The 'loan' was to be repaid within seven days hence the aggrieved paid the debt along with the interest.
However, the man kept receiving calls asking him to clear the loan and subsequently recovery agents threatened to share his obscenely morphed photograph with his relatives if he didn't cough up more money. He finally approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Thursday.
The police have registered a case under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act pertaining to cheating by personation, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, defamation, printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory, criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication, identity theft, cheating by personation by using computer resource and publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc, in electronic form.
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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
