Bank Customer Was Searching Customer Care Number; Robbed Of Rs 2.77 Lakh In A Daring Online Fraud

Cyber fraud has made a victim of a 61 year old steel businessman, who lost a shocking Rs 2.77 lakh.

This happened in Malad (west), as the businessman dialed a fake number of his bank to activate his credit card. 

Senior Businessman Loses 61 Lakh From Bank Account

The 61 year old steel businessman from Malad picked up a fake number from the internet to call his bank. While he intended to activate his credit card, he instead was robbed off of Rs. 2.77 lakh from his account.

As per the complainant, Citibank had recently issued him a credit card with a credit limit of Rs. 5 lakh as he has been using a credit card for more than two decades. However, the credit card needed activation after verification. 

The victim then googled the number for the Citibank phone number, where he found a fake number of the bank that has been put up by the fraudster. 

As per the victim, he had no idea that cyber scammers like these put up their own numbers on Google as customer care of banks, helpline numbers of online shopping portals, wine shops, courier services, cake shops, and sweet shops, etc.

Money Looted Under Pretext Of Changing Address

He then called the fraudster, under the belief that he was contacting the bank, but received no response. Soon after, he received a call from the scammer, who posed as a bank official from Citibank tooffered help.

The fraudster then sent a fraudulent link to the businessman, and asked him to update his address on the link. The fraudster informed him that an OTP (One Time Password) on his phone to update his address and share the OTP with him. The businessman reportedly received an SMS from  “VM-CITYBK” and it read “PTP is 10***7 for address Change.

The businessman states, “I trusted him and sent the OTP following which, in three transactions, Rs 2.77 lakh got transferred from my account. Soon after I got the alerts, the man cut the phone and did not pick up when I called him again.”

After this, the businessman realized that he had been looted, and then approached the police.

Here is How you can Avoid Any Cyber Crime

Do not share account information like CVV, OTP, expiry date, etc with anyone. No bank employee or online payment app employee is authorized to ask for such information.

Do not connect with the bank or any online payment app by searching for customer care numbers on Google or social media platforms.

Do not pick up calls from unidentified numbers claiming to be banks or online payment apps.

Do not enter a UPI pin or pay money when you are receiving money.

Do not install third-party apps like Screen Share, TeamViewer, etc

Do not pay any amount to secure a job. No job or internship providing site asks you to pay any amount to secure a job.