Woman loses ₹7 lakh in online fraud

Pune: A cybercrook duped a private firm employee from Chinchwad of Rs 6.87 lakh by posing as a representative of her bank in April.

The woman had filed an online complaint. After preliminary investigations, a case was registered with the Chinchwad police on Wednesday.

An officer from the Chinchwad police said in April, the complainant, in a bid to send some money to her friend, transferred the fund to a wrong bank account via an online transaction.

She wanted to recover the money she sent to the wrong account. The officer said she searched for her bank’s customer care number online to recover her money. She contacted a number and the receiver took details of the bank account she used for the transaction along with her other bank accounts after posing as the a bank employee.

The suspect then contacted the woman via a video call and requested her to make changes to her cellphone’s settings. “He then accessed her cellphone and sent OTPs. As soon as the woman shared the OTPs, Rs 6.87 lakh was siphoned from her two bank accounts,” the officer said.

He said the investigations so far revealed the amount was transferred to four bank accounts. “We have sought the details of these bank accounts from the two banks where the victim had her accounts,” he said.