Scribe cheated of Rs 80,000 at Chitra Santhe in Bengaluru
Using the massive gathering at Chitra Santhe held on January 6 in the city as cover, the accused allegedly conned the journalist into revealing his banking data.
Published: 16th January 2019 04:29 AM | Last Updated: 16th January 2019 04:53 AM | A+A A-
BENGALURU: After being robbed of Rs 80,000 by a person pretending to be an employee of the State Bank of India (SBI), a journalist of a vernacular newspaper in the city filed a complaint to the police.
Using the massive gathering at Chitra Santhe held on January 6 in the city as cover, the accused allegedly conned the journalist into revealing his banking data. This was used eventually to withdraw money from his account.
According to the complaint filed by Suresh (name changed), he was on a reporting assignment when he saw a staff member inside the SBI ATM that’s located in Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat premises. “When I went inside the ATM, he offered to activate online banking services for me, as I had been trying to activate it for a while. He tried to activate the services using my phone, and when it didn’t work, he used his phone for the purpose,” Suresh told The New Indian Express.
On the pretext of activating his internet banking services, the unknown accused also asked him to disclose the OTP that was sent on his number for the same. “After that, he took my ATM and swiped it in a point-of-sale device and asked me to enter the ATM pin. He then generated the user name and password for internet banking and gave it to me,” he said.
Though nothing unusual happened during the first few days after that incident, he was shocked when he received a text alert on his phone on Saturday (January 12) midnight at 12.01 am, that a total of `60,000 was withdrawn in three transactions. He blocked his ATM card and lodged a complaint with the police.
Suresh said that although he thought that only `60,000 was withdrawn from his bank account, his bank statement showed that a total of `80,000 was withdrawn during the week, since he activated the online banking service.
“I had approached the person because he was inside the ATM. Following the investigation, police have learnt that the money was withdrawn from an ATM at a railway station in Jharkhand,” he said.
Following the complaint at High Grounds Police Station, the case was transferred to the Cyber Crime police station for investigation.
