Thane: 2 duped of Rs 5 lakh by cyberfraudsters in power bill scam

THANE: Two persons were collectively duped of Rs 5 lakh by cyberfraudsters in separate incidents, who sent them fraudulent texts informing that their electricity bill is due, and that their power supply would be disconnected.
In the first incident, a 47-year-old Vartak nagar resident received a message stating that he has not paid his electricity bill of Rs 4,000, and if he fails to clear it, his power supply will be disconnected, the police said.
A police officer quoting the complaint informed that the conman told him to download a remote access app on his phone to complete the process. As he downloaded the app and tried to make the payment using his credit card, he received two text messages of Rs 99,798 being debited from his bank account. That’s when he realised that he has been duped.
In the second incident, a 67-year-old businessman who runs an tech company in Wagle estate was duped of Rs 3.95 lakh by the cyberfraudster.
The police said that it was on June 29, that the victim received a message about an outstanding electricity bill of Rs 430. Moreover, the company owner informed that even his account head had also followed the same procedure by using the fraud remote application, post which first Rs 430 were debited, and later a total of Rs 3.95 lakh were debited from their company.
Both the cases were registered at the Vartak nagar police station under IPC sections of cheating, and of the Information Technology act. The police said that all the power companies have issued advisories not to fall for such SMS scams, despite that such incidents keep happening.