After realising he was cheated, the complainant approached the Malad police and a first information report (FIR) was registered on September 5. A 72-year-old man from Malad in Mumbai fell prey to a cyber fraud this month where fraudsters sent him a fake message, purportedly sent by an electricity power supply company asking him to pay his electricity bill, and tricked him into revealing his bank details that were used to transfer Rs 4.18 lakh from his account. The fraudsters did this by making him install a remote access app that allowed them to view his mobile activities and an app that forwarded SMSes to another device, police said.
After realising he was cheated, the complainant approached the Malad police and a first information report (FIR) was registered on September 5.
The senior citizen told the police that his son lives abroad and sends him money every month which is his only source of income. He said that he had a total of Rs 5 lakh in two bank accounts. On September 1, the man allegedly received a text message informing him that his electricity connection would be disconnected if he did not pay his bill and directed him to call on the phone number given in the message.
The senior citizen told the police that he panicked and called the number to inform them that the bill was paid. The fraudster who picked up the call said that the payment was not updated in the system and asked him to send Rs 10 on a link to update the information. The man was then asked to download Anydesk and AutoForward SMS apps and make a payment of Rs 10, he told the police.
According to the police, using the apps, the fraudster was able to see the senior citizen’s mobile activities and steal his banking details when he paid Rs 10. Using these details, the fraudster carried out money transactions and the one time passwords (OTPs) received by the senior citizen were automatically forwarded to the fraudster’s device, police added. Soon, after six transactions, a total of Rs 4.18 lakh got debited from his account.