Fraudster uses Rs 10 water bill ruse to dupe senior citizen of Rs 10L

Hyderabad: A cyber fraudster posing as a representative of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) allegedly duped a 74-year-old businessman from Santosh Nagar of ₹10 lakh by convincing him to install a fake mobile application to pay a pending water bill of just ₹10.

According to the victim, he received a WhatsApp message on May 21 claiming to be from the Water Board. The message warned that his water connection would be disconnected that night due to an unupdated meter reading. When he called the phone number provided in the message, the caller informed him that an outstanding amount of ₹10 had to be paid immediately.

“I was guided over a WhatsApp voice call by a person claiming to be a Water Board employee. He sent me an APK file titled HMWSSB CAN UPDATE.apk and instructed me to install it and make the payment through the app. Although the payment attempt failed, I received bank alerts on June 3 stating that ₹10 lakh had been debited from my account in three separate transactions,” the complainant said.

According to police, the fraudster collected the internet banking details of the victim through the malicious app and transferred the amounts to other bank accounts

Based on the complaint, the Hyderabad cybercrime police booked a case under Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act, Sections 318(4) (cheating) and 319(2) (cheating by personation) of the BNS on Wednesday.