A 61-year-old woman who wanted to lodge a complaint against a BEST bus which had been allegedly involved in a minor accident with her two-wheeler, lost Rs 97,000 after she corresponded with a fraudulent ‘consumer court helpline’ number that she found on the internet. The person who responded to her call, on the pretext of helping her, allegedly sent her a phishing link and eventually siphoned the money from her bank account.
According to the N M Joshi Marg Police, the complainant is a resident of Tardeo and works in a private company at Lower Parel. On July 15, when she was riding her two-wheeler from home to her office, a BEST bus hit her vehicle near Mahalaxmi railway station. On reaching her workplace, the victim decided to raise a complaint against the BEST bus. On the internet, she came across a ‘helpline’ number.
The victim then called the said number and the person on the other side heard her complaint and then disconnected the call. Minutes later, she received a call from an unknown mobile number and the caller claimed fraudulently that it was a ‘consumer court helpline’ number and that the victim’s complaint would be addressed. The caller then told the victim that he would be sending her a link on which the victim was required to write her complaint and make a payment of Rs 5, police said.
A link was then received by the victim from the fraudster on her WhatsApp. The victim clicked on the said link and filled in details such as her name, complaint and paid Rs 5 on the payment gateway provided in the link. In a span of 25 minutes, the victim received six bank transaction alert messages, informing that a total of Rs 97,666 had been deducted from her account. The victim then approached the Worli police station, where she was asked to lodge her complaint with the N M Joshi Marg police.
The police have registered a case on charges of cheating by personation, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, identity theft and cheating by personation by using computer resources.
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