Mumbai: A 58-year-old man has lodged complaint with the Gamdevi police after he was duped of Rs 2.65 lakh while ordering sweets online. Golani had dialled a number listed under Tewari sweets, Opera House, and was sent a malicious link on his WhatsApp number. Golani was asked to follow instructions in the link to order sweets wherein he intended to pay through his credit card. After the purchase he got a call from a person who asked for the details of his card along with the OTP which Golani provided him with. Soon after this, Rs 9,500 was deducted from his account.
After this, Golani received one more call. This time the caller informed Golani that he would receive one more OTP which he should share with him so that his credit card details could be erased from the system. Golani shared the OTP again only to find that Rs 1.28 lakh had been pilfered from his account. Not realising what had happened, Golani got angry and called on the number complaining the excess money being deducted off from his account. The caller assured him that the excess money would be repaid to him and for that a third OTP number would be sent to him. Golani shared this OTP number as well only to realise that he has been defrauded of another Rs 1.28 lakhs. An unsuspecting Golani was duped of Rs 2.65 lakh in a matter of few minutes.
When the FPJ contacted Tewari Bros, Opera House, a staffer said they had blocked their online phone number since similar cases were reported earlier. "But someone has inserted his number against our name and is cheating people," he stated. The shop owner had complained to the police in the past, he added.
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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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