Online tutor duped of Rs 1L by fraudster posing as army officer

Bengaluru: After social media and dating apps users, online tutors appear to be the new targets for cybercrooks. A city woman taking online tuition was recently tricked into transferring nearly Rs 1 lakh by a fraudster, impersonating as an army officer.
The victim, Sahana, 24, (name changed), a PG student of Bioinformatics at a private college in the city, takes online classes through a platform for learning (Superprof) to earn money for her academics and daily needs. As she registered as a tutor on the platform, her details, including her mobile number, were displayed on the platform. Interested students would contact the tutor and take the classes by paying a fee.
According to her complaint to Electronics City police, she received a call from mobile number 9116883912 around 6pm on Jan 19. The caller introduced himself as Randeep Singh, an Indian army officer. He said his daughter required online tutoring in computer programming.
Sahana agreed to take the classes and informed him she would charge Rs 12,000. Singh told her that the payment would be made from the Indian Army Shikshana Nidhi as he is an officer from the force. He collected her banking details. Some time later, he told her that the amount had been transferred to her account. Sahana checked and told him she hadn't received any amount.
Fraudster threatens to lodge criminal case
The fraudster continued to pressure her to accept that she received the money. He threatened her that the amount sent to her was from an Army account and she could face a criminal case for denying having received it. He said he would lodge a police complaint against her.
Singh called her multiple times, gave constant threats and harassed her. The fraudster, by instilling fear in her, managed to convince her to transfer the money back to his account.
"I was so scared that I agreed to transfer Rs 12,000 to him through a digital payment application. He told me that he hadn't received the money and accused me of cheating him. He asked me to send the amount again and promised to return it if he received excess," Sahana told TOI. He tricked her into transferring the money multiple times. After he received Rs 95,999, he stopped attending her calls.
"It was only then that I realised it was a fraud. I contacted cyber helpline 1930 and later lodged a police complaint," Sahana said.
A senior police officer said a case has been registered under the Information Technology Act and BNS 318 (cheating).