Ahmedabad: Fake UPI representatives dupe three small business owners of Rs 1.4 lakh

Ahmedabad: Three small business owners in the city lost a combined Rs 1.39 lakh to fraudsters who posed as representatives of UPI payment companies and walked away with their money in broad daylight. Each case followed a similar pattern: build trust, get the phone, and transfer the money before the victim realises what has happened.In the first case registered with Ghatlodia police, a 22-year-old laundryman was visited by a man who introduced himself as a Paytm employee. The man said he needed to deactivate the shop's Paytm sound box and asked to process a request on the victim's phone. Within minutes, Rs 50,000 was transferred out of his bank account.A street food vendor in Sarkhej lost Rs 45,000 to two men claiming to be from PhonePe. They offered to replace a faulty speaker, asked him to make a Re 1 transaction to verify his account. They then took his phone, accessed his banking app, transferred money in multiple transactions and even deleted the app and SMS alerts to make sure no notification gave them away.The third victim, a 55-year-old juice vendor in Vastrapur, was cheated of Rs 44,999. The accused had first visited him earlier to help set up a Paytm account, building familiarity. On their return visit, they offered to activate an auto-transfer facility, and used the access to drain his linked bank account.All three complaints have been registered and police are investigating whether the cases are connected to an organised cyber fraud network.