A 31-year-old woman from Mumbai Ghatkopar West locality was duped into losing Rs 6 lakh while trying to complete a transaction of Rs 5,000. The break came when the woman, an employee of private firm, reported the matter at the Ghatkopar police station. The scam happened on September 26, when she attempted to withdraw Rs 5,000 by entering the ATM number in the cardless withdrawal option of the mobile application of her bank.
When the transaction did not go through, she said that she decided to type in the company’s website to find customer service helpline. Believing the first number she pulled up on Google, which seemed to be of a government-affiliated organization or her bank’s official support service, she called the number. As fate would have it, the number she dialed was belonging to con artists pretending to be customers service representatives. In other cases, impersonating bank officials, they called her attempting to assist her sort out the failed transaction and rather made her disclose her banking details.
As soon as the fraudsters got the woman’s details, they proceeded to continuously take Rs 6 lakh from her bank. For instance, often by the time she knows the extent of the fraud some damage has already been made. It is only when the woman realized that she had duped, she immediately proceeded to the Ghatkopar police station to report the matter.
The occurrence goes on revealing the rising problem of cyber fraud within the South Asian nation particularly with reference to Mumbai where fraudsters are learning how to impersonate genuine organizations. This is how many fall victims to scams as they search customer care numbers or helpline numbers only to find out that artists have a changing search engine results or even create fake websites and fake ads that look very genuine.
This case also has a cautionary lesson, particularly concerning the means of identifying the validity of the contact numbers given, when providing individual or financial data. These professionals recommend that the public should not type customer care numbers on search engines but prefer to use the verified banking app or the website to locate the contacts.
The police of Ghatkopar jurisdiction have filed a complaint and started proceedings. They are trying to track the fraudsters to apprehend them, but recovering the money that was stolen is likely going to be difficult. In view of emerging cases of cybercrimes authorities call for enhanced public awareness and improved practice of minimizing such disasters.
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