Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
A 56-year-old head of a private firm who has been lured into free credit card from a leading private bank lost ₹ 72 lakh after he inserted his SIM card into the new mobile phone received from the bank as compliment.
Based on the complaint filed,the South Division Cyber Crime Police have registered a case against unknown person under IT act and also under impersonation and cheating case.
According to the complaint,Basavaraju G E,resident of Bikasipura in Bengaluru South said that on Wednesday he received a call from a person claiming to be executive of a private leading bank offering free life time credit card facility based on his bank transactions and Cibil score.
Initially Mr.Basavaraj agreed but later refused when the caller sought personal details and mobile phone authentication.
However the caller persuaded him with a complementary mobile phone and suggested him to insert his SIM card into the new set for authentication.
Few hours later,Mr.Basavaraju received a brand new phone through private courier and followed the instruction.
Within minutes a total of ₹ 66,10,421 has been debited from his saving bank account along with ₹ 5,96,044 from his credit card .
Shocked Basavaraju tried to call the executive number but it was out of reach.
Realizing that he has been cheated online Mr. Basavaraju called 1930 and reported the matter before rushing to the south division cyber crime police station for a detailed complaint.
In another incident,50-year-old businessman from Mahalakshmipuram,lost a total of ₹ 52.6 lakh to cyber fraudsters in a bid to get a cash reward of ₹ 1.04 crore cash prize money he was offered by unknown person.
The victim,Satish Shetty paid the total amounts in installments in different dates from March 11 to April 16 until he finally realized that he had been cheated and approached North Division cyber crime police on Friday.
According to the complaint,Mr.Shetty received a message on his online account that he had won the cash prize from Meesho finance India post through scratch card entry and asked him to claim the money.
When Mr.Shetty contacted the person, he was advised to pay 4 per cent of TDS to claim the price.As soon as the money was transferred to the account online.
Mr.Shetty received another message asking him to pay GST, CGST and International GST total worth ₹ 25 lakh. Initially Mr.Shetty had a doubt about paying such a big amount to claim the cash prize of ₹ 14.7 lac but when he checked the ledger balance was showing as ₹ 1,04,29541.
Excited to get the cash price,Mr.Shetty transferred the money but instead he get another mail to pay another sum of ₹ 26 lakh towards different taxes and dues failing which the cash prize will be sent for donation and a criminal case will be initiated against him.
Scared of legal problem Mr.Shetty transferred the money and realized that he has been duped .
The cyber crime police advised people not to entertain any messages or calls where people offering freebies .
There is no free meal and people are waiting to cheat gullible people if they fallen pray to such tactics , the police officer, added .
The police advised the people to not to act in haste and delay the process of transferring money either by putting the call on hold or contact their relatives , friends or police on 112 to get advise .
