Mumbai: A 25-year-old woman was cheated to the tune of Rs 1.10 lakh by a job portal last week, police said. The woman was hunting for a job online when she came across the website. She was persuaded to pay Rs 30 as a subscription fee. In the process, she shared her bank account details with an ‘executive’ who worked for the portal.
Before she could realise what was happening, Rs 1.10 lakh had been transferred from her account in a series of transactions. According to police sources, the complainant, a Palghar resident, has a master’s degree in business administration and works as a telecommunications manager in a Borivli-based firm.
Since, the woman has a long work commute, she wanted to switch her job. On April 17, she embarked on an online job search and found a website, which asked her to pay a subscription charge of Rs30. As she was not ready to pay the fee, the woman moved on to another site and forgot about the episode.
The next day, on April 18, she received a call from an executive from the job portal, persuading her to pay the ‘paltry’ sum of Rs30. She refused but the company executive allegedly ‘sweet-talked’ her into divulging her bank details, so that the subscription amount could be deducted, she claimed.
She provided the information, only to receive a message from the bank minutes later stating Rs1.10 lakh was transferred from her account to another, in a series of transactions. Police said when the complainant tried to contact the job portal executive, her phone was switched off. She immediately approached Borivli police and lodged a case of cheating.
Requesting anonymity, a cop said, “We have booked an unidentified woman under relevant sections of the IPC and IT Act for cheating. A probe is on and we have sought a statement from the complainant’s bank to track the transferred amount of money.”