Mumbai: A 50-year-old government school teacher from Badlapur lost Rs 54.74 lakh in an online insurance scam.
The woman, whose husband passed away in 2020, was targeted by scammers posing as representatives of an insurance company. On September 24 last year, she received a call claiming her late husband had taken a life insurance policy. Days later, another caller, posing as a fund manager, claimed the policy had been converted into shares and that she was eligible to receive Rs 80 lakh.
Between October 2024 and April 14, she was induced to make 16 online transfers to various bank accounts, totaling Rs 54.74 lakh. The scammers cited reasons such as CIBIL charges, NOC charges, nominee fees, and demat account charges. When the promised payout never arrived, the complainant confronted the callers but received evasive responses.
Realising she had been duped, she lodged a complaint with the police. An FIR was registered earlier this month under Section 66D of the IT Act (cheating by personation using computer resources). She has provided the scammers’ phone numbers and bank account details to the police. Mumbai police data shows a rise in such frauds: seven online insurance fraud cases were registered between January and March, compared to three during the same period last year.
