Mumbai: A 71-year-old man lost ₹1.73 lakh to a cyber fraudster while trying to get a ₹75 refund on Paytm. The cyber fraudster asked him to download an app to get a refund and the senior citizen followed the instructions and got cheated.
The complainant has a joint account with his wife in a private bank and he uses net banking. According to police, the complainant did not receive the ₹75 refund on Paytm that he had made. In order to get back the refund, the complainant searched the customer care number of Paytm on Google and found a number that he has now forgotten.
Fraudster posed as customer care executive
When he called that number, the person who identified himself as the customer care executive of Paytm asked him to download an app. The senior citizen had even forgotten the name of the app. As per the direction of the cyber fraudster, the complainant followed.
Eight illegal transactions made
However, he found it suspicious when he received a message of ₹24,600 from his bank account. He disconnected the call and checked the message. He was shocked to see that a total of eight transactions were made. Of the eight transactions, four transactions of ₹24,600 and remaining four transactions of ₹2500 were made.
He immediately rushed to the bank and before he reached the bank, he received another message about a ₹25,000 transfer from his account. In total, he lost ₹1,73,400 to a cyber fraudster.
Victim received of an unknown deposit in his account
Interestingly, after 20 days after the incident, he received a message about a ₹1,98,400 deposit in his account. However, it was removed after some time. He again approached the bank where he was informed that money was deposited in a shadow account which was taken by the bank.
According to police, the incident took place in November 2021 and the person approached the police now. Now, the police registered a case under section 420 of IPC and 66 C of the IT Act and started an investigation.
Mumbai Cyber Safe: 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
