Mumbai: A popular Marathi actress recently fell prey to a KYC fraud and ended up losing ₹1.48 lakh. The fraudster had messaged the actress posing to be from a mobile operator, asking her to fill up the KYC form, failing which her mobile services will be suspended. The actress was tricked into sharing her privy bank details and duped to the tune of ₹1.48 lakh. A case of cheating, impersonation has been registered at Vile Parle police station and further investigation is underway.
According to the police sources, the incident occurred on January 28, a day after she had received a message on her husband's phone from a number, which read that it was from a Telecom service company. The message read that the number could be blocked if the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) details are not updated at the earliest.
The actress contacted the number mentioned in the message, to be answered by Rajesh Agarwal, who claimed to be a customer care agent of the telecom service. Furthermore, the fraudster asked the actress to download and install the Quick Support application, which allows a third party to access people’s mobile activities.
Believing Agarwal, the actress obliged and was asked to wire a sum of ₹10 as the KYC fees from her credit card by entering her banking details. Unaware was the actress as the fraudster was able to see the privy details through the application.
A while later, the actress felt suspicious about the call and immediately visited the Telecom service store, only to learn that they do not send any messages seeking banking details to fill up KYC forms. Subsequently, she enquired with the bank and was shocked to learn that three unauthorized transactions valued at ₹1,48,765 were made from her credit card.
The woman approached the bank and filed a dispute form, after which she went to Vile Parle police station and lodged a complaint. Acting on the complaint, a case of cheating and impersonation was registered by the police under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.
What is KYC fraud?
Telecom users are now receiving messages asking for KYC verification failing which the message says the users will lose access to their number in 24 hours. These messages also send a number saying that it belongs to customer care and that users should call them. Users can easily spot the scam messages as they will have spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, even the company name will not be spelt correctly.
