A 42-year-old homemaker from South Mumbai lost ₹9 lakh while searching for a customer care number of her bank. The fraudster induced the woman to download a third party application and asked to transfer the money. Following the complaint, the Malabar Hill police have registered an offence and began their investigation.
The incident took place last week when the woman, a resident of the Malabar Hill area was searching for her bank's customer care number online to get her transactions details.
According to the police, the woman dialled a mobile number she found online as a customer care number, however, the caller disconnected the number saying he would call her sometime. She immediately received a call from another number, said police.
The woman asked for her transaction details to the operator that is when the person on the phone asked her to download a screen sharing application, the woman who was unaware of the application did as she was asked and downloaded the app.
She also shared the unique ID of the app to the fraudster which shared her mobile screen with him, said police.
The fraudster then asked her to type her account number and in minutes, she received a transaction alert of ₹9 lakh from her account.
She realised that something went wrong and rushed to her bank after disconnecting the phone. The bank officials froze her account and advised her to approach the police.
"We have registered an offence under various sections for cheating by personation (419), cheating (420) and common intention (34) of the Indian Penal Code, along with sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation using computer resources) of the Information Technology Act and the investigation is underway, said a police official.
