Man loses Rs2.7L to conman

Mangaluru: In a bid to enquire about the Rs 30,000 he lost due to a failed transaction through a mobile payment app, ended in a man losing Rs 2.7 lakh to a conman who posed as a customer care executive.
Kundan Kumar, 29, who originally hails from Bihar but is staying at Hoige Bazaar here since his childhood, wanted to transfer Rs 30,000 to his relatives back home. For this, he chose to transfer the money via Google Pay, the internet service giant’s mobile app to make online payments. Though the money got deducted from his account, the transaction failed as his relatives did not receive the money, and neither did the money get refunded to his account. Hence, Kumar sought to take the help of customer care in resolving the issue. While surfing the internet for the customer care number, the search engine threw a number on his display.

As Kumar registered his grievance with the ‘customer care executive’, he was told that he would receive a code on his phone, which he needed to send across on another number that the executive would provide him. Kumar ended up sharing all his bank details on the new number with a hope of recovering Rs 30,000. The person on the other end assured him that the money will be refunded within 24 hours.

To his dismay, Kumar woke up the next morning only to realise that Rs 2.7 lakh had been siphoned off from his account through a UPI transaction. An investigation is on.