Mumbai: An 80-year-old retired senior citizen was duped of ₹1.73 lakh by cyber fraudsters in the name of a fake electricity bill.
The victim Navinchandra Vinayak Savle, resident of Nehru Nagar in Kurla, received a text message on Saturday morning which read, “Dear consumer, your electricity power will be disconnected at night 9:30pm. Your previous month bill is not updated, please connect customer care,” along with a mobile number. Savle called the number who asked him to send ₹12 and if he failed to, a penalty of ₹90,000 will be imposed.
Savle asked to fill debit card and bank account details
Savle immediately disconnected the call and in an hour, he received a link from Tata Power followed by a WhatsApp video call where a man told Savle that his electricity will be disconnected by night. Worried Savle paid ₹12 and also clicked a couple of links that were sent to him via text messages and WhatsApp. In the links, Savle was asked to fill up his debit card details and bank account details, which he did.
Unknown apps automatically downloaded on victim's mobile
After he clicked the links a couple of unknown mobile applications were automatically downloaded on his mobile. Sometime later, he received two text messages from his bank that said two transactions of ₹49,500 and ₹24,500 had taken place from bank number 1 and another sum of ₹99,500 from bank number 2. He lost a total sum of ₹1.73 lakh.
When Savle tried to call the number from which the unknown fraudsters called him, it turned out to be switched off.
Police on Saturday registered a case against unknown people under sections 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.
