Mumbai cyber safe: Accountant loses ₹7.23 lakh to cyber fraud

Mumbai: Payal Dolasia, 27, an accountant, has filed a complaint with NM Joshi Marg police stating that on Monday, when she was in her office in Lower Parel, she received a link on her mobile phone. When she opened the link, it had a part-time job offer.

The offer said recipients could earn money by subscribing to YouTube channels. The message contained two YouTube links. Dolasia subscribed to them and she received Rs120 in her account, Rs 60 for each link.

How the victim was duped

Dolasia was then asked to send a screenshot of the subscribed YouTube accounts, which she did. The scammers gave her a ‘job code’ and asked her to send it to a Telegram account.

Once Dolasia had sent the ‘job code’, the cyber thieves asked her for her bank details. Over the next couple of days, in a series of financial transactions, the scammers sent her increasing amounts of cash for completing various tasks. In the end the scammers stole Rs 7,23,889 from her account in four instalments.

When Dolasia told the scammers that the money was gone, they asked her to speak to a man named ‘Jian’. Instead of returning the money, Jian demanded Rs10 lakh from Dolasia.

Realising that she had been cheated, Dolasia went to the NM Joshi Marg police station and filed a report.

The police have registered an FIR under sectionsof the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act.

Mumbai police cautions citizens

According to Cyber Crime Cell under Crime Branch of Mumbai police, the most common form of online frauds are related to banks, online commerce platforms where fraudsters, posing as bank /platform officials, convince the victim to share OTP, KYC updates and sometimes send the links to be clicked to access bank accounts.“People should know that no bank or institution is authorised to demand for bank details or PIN numbers. Unfortunately, educated people are falling prey to online frauds and losing lakhs of rupees,” explained DCP Cyber Crime, Balsingh Rajput.