Mumbai: The presence of mind of a 66-year-old Chembur resident saved the elderly from being conned by a cyber fraudster who posed as a restaurant executive.
Recently, V Narayan was browsing the web for ordering food online, when he received a call from the fraudster who offered two free thalis on ordering one meal.
Subsequently, the caller sent a link to Narayan, asking him to share his bank details for paying the nominal booking amount of Rs 10.
While filing the details on the link, the sexagenarian spotted something unusual and immediately backed out of the process.
Recounting the incident while talking to The Free Press Journal, Narayan said, “I was surfing the internet on August 23, to check if food could be home delivered. Identifying himself only as Deepak, the person claimed to be calling from the Bhagat Tarachand restaurant. Giving the special offer of two thalis against the order of one, he flawlessly recited the menu. Then, he texted me a link, asking to make a booking amount of Rs 10 through debit or credit card, while he would hold the call.”
“I told him that I will read the link details and would get back to him, but the caller insisted on holding the call. Whenever I feed the CVV number of my bank card while doing any transaction, it never shows the numbers on the screen. There are simply star marks on the screen which is basically a security feature.
"But the moment I keyed in the CVV number on the link provided by Deepak, my CVV digits were displayed on the page. I immediately deleted the numbers and opted out of the process as I felt that this could be fraud,” he added.
Not stopping here, Narayan then searched for the contact number of the Bhagat Tarachand restaurant.
“An executive from the restaurant said that they were aware of this fraud and have advised the customers to not to fall prey to such trickery,” added Kumar.
Even on its social media accounts, the eatery has asked people to beware of such frauds hampering their brand image.
Asserting that the need of the hour is to remain extremely alert amid rising efrauds, cyber crime deputy commissioner of police Hemraj Rajput said, “Citizens should only do transactions through authentic sites. If anyone wants to do any online shopping or wants details about anything, then they should only refer to the original sites.
"Any consumer care number given on the internet should be presumed to be a fake. Also, if one gives directions over the call and entices to share privy details then it should be realised that something is foul. Local police register such cases of scam at the police station and such matters can also be reported online.”
