Brahmavara, Karnataka native Francis Pius has made headlines due to an incident in which he lost Rs 99,997 to a cyber fraud.
What went down
He was on his way to Mangaluru and as the car was about to enter the toll plaza in Hejamady, he realized there wasn’t enough money in his FASTag which he had to recharge in order to pay the toll.
FASTag is an electronic toll collection system, operated by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
Based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, FASTag is affixed on the windscreen of vehicles. They are prepaid rechargeable tags for toll collection.
Posing as fake Fastag customer service
He reportedly stopped the car and looked up the toll collection system’s helpline number, seeking assistance from a representative from the FASTag customer cell.
However he called a fake one which cost him a good chunk of his wealth.
The number was run by a con man who offered to help him, introducing himself as a representative of Paytm Fastag.
The culprit asked Pius to share the one-time password (OTP) that was sent to his phone.
Pius followed the instructions given by the “FASTag representative”, and Rs 49,000 was deducted from his bank account.
Four more transactions went through before Pius finally caught wind of the situation..
However it was too late, since by that time amounts of Rs 19,999, Rs 19,998, Rs 9,999 and Rs 1,000 got deducted from his account.
Compromised app stole money
He filed a complaint with the Udupi CEN police station.
The police later discovered that Pius was instructed to install a suspicious app which may have secretly debited the amount.
A case of cyber fraud was registered under sections- 66 (C), and 66 (D) of the IT Act.
The investigation team is now in the process of zeroing in on the account to which the money was transferred following the incident.
Once concluded, the customer details (KYC details) available with the bank will be sought in order to identify the scamsters.
