MUMBAI: A sales director with a private company in Mumbai was allegedly duped of Rs 98,000 by a man impersonating a Border Security Force jawan.
The accused had called Sayantan Dasgupta, a resident of Powai on the pretext of taking his Kolkata flat on lease.
The incident occurred late on Friday when Sayantan received a phone call from the accused who identified himself as Sachin Sharma.
Sachin told Sayantan that he was looking for a house on rent in Kolkata to move with his family after he got transferred from Guwahati in the city.
“My wife sensed something wrong when the fraudster showed interest in taking my flat on rent without seeing it. I believed the person after he called me through WhatsApp and told me that he has been transferred from Guwahati and wanted a flat urgently to move along with his family," Sayantan told TOI.
"Sachin said that he would like to block the flat from being rented out. For which, he would deposit Rs 50,000 in my account through Google Pay. Believing him, I accepted the request sent by Sachin and immediately, money got debited from my bank account. The second transaction was done automatically without any PIN authentication,” Sayantan told TOI.
In all, two transactions of Rs 49,000 were carried out from Sayantan’s bank account within one minute following which he immediately blocked the account and filed a police complaint.
“The scamster got Sayantan’s contact details from a website on which he had placed an advertisement to rent out his Kolkta flat. We have sought details from the bank to track down the account details of the scamster,” said a police officer of the Powai police station.
A case has been registered under Section 420 of the IPC (cheating) and under the sections 66-C (identity theft) and 66-D (cheating by impersonation) under the IT Act against an unidentified person.