Trying to save Rs 5 000 Mumbai woman loses Rs 6 lakh to cyber fraudsters

A 31-year-old woman allegedly lost Rs 6 lakh to online scammers after dialling a number, which she had found following a Google search, believing it to be the helpline of a government body, police said on Friday.

The con came to light on Wednesday when the woman, who works in a private firm, approached the Ghatkopar police station with a complaint, an official said.

The woman, a resident of Chirag Nagar locality in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar West, on September 26 attempted to withdraw Rs 5,000 from an ATM using the cardless feature through her bank’s mobile app, the official said citing the complaint.

However, possibly due to some error, she got a message that the money had been sent through the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) account ‘kerlacmdrf.covid@icici’ to the ‘Chief Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund’.

The next day, the woman ran a Google search for the toll-free helpline of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which owns UPI. One of the search results showed ‘1800-41-2222-32’ as the number, she said in her police complaint.

Trusting the number to be genuine, she dialled it and a person, who identified himself as Suresh Sharma and an employee of NPCI’s Bandra branch, told her that she would receive a call from another number.

Later, a man, who introduced himself as Amit Yadav, called the complainant and asked her to download an app and give access to her mobile screen for assistance. He persuaded the woman to share her bank account details, passwords and info about her PAN and UPI accounts, the official said.

Immediately after sharing the details, Rs 93,062 was deducted from her account, the official said. The amount was transferred to the account of one Virendra Raikwar.

Yadav told the woman that a new account had been created for her and she would get all the deducted amounts within 24 hours.

On September 28, the woman contacted the NCPI “toll-free” number and told Suresh Sharma that her money was not returned after 24 hours.

Sharma then connected her to one Rakesh Kumar Dosara, who also took all her details. Once again, money was deducted from her bank account, he said.

The cycle repeated and the woman lost about Rs 6 lakh between September 16 and 20, the official said.

The woman later realised that she had fallen prey to cyber fraudsters. She then filed a police complaint on Wednesday.

A case of online fraud has been registered against unidentified persons, the official said, adding that a probe is underway.