44-year-old Chandigarh businessman falls prey to cyber fraud, loses ₹4 lakh

Had shared OTP with the caller claiming to be an SBI employee

A Sector-16 businessman became the latest victim to cyber fraud after an unidentified woman withdrew over ₹4 lakh from his bank account here, said police on Sunday.

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The complainant, 44, is a native from Himachal Pradesh. The complainant alleged that on Saturday around 5pm he received a call from a woman who identified herself as Pooja Sharma. Sharma who claimed to be an employee of State Bank of India (SBI) bank told the complainant that she had called up the inform the latter to upgrade his SBI card and that he needs to get his HDFC credit card linked with SBI.

“She asked for my house address and other details, which I shared. Following this, I received an OTP and shared the same with her. After a couple of hours, I received a message that ₹4 lakh was withdrawn from my account for online shopping” the complainant stated in the FIR. “I informed the concerned branch manager about the fraud and got all my cards blocked immediately,” he said.

Following the complaint, a case was registered under Sections 420(cheating), 419(punishment for cheating by personation) and 120-B (party to criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Not the first case

In April, 2018, former Punjab director general of police (DGP) SK Verma also fell prey to online fraudsters after an unidentified man withdrew nearly ₹1 lakh from his bank account. Resident of Sector 11, the DGP who retired in 2005 also filed a police complaint in this regard.

Likewise, a Panjab University (PU) professor Manoj Kumar of University Business School (UBS) was duped of ₹50,000. The fraudster called him and claimed that they needed to update Kumar’s bank account at the SBI. After Kumar shared his personal details,over ₹50,000 was withdrawn from his account.

The fraudsters also withdrew ₹70,000 from the bank account of Uttam Chand, a senior technician working in physics department of PU.