E-Paper
70-year-old swindled out of ₹2 lakh on pretext of linking PAN
The 70-year-old woman was defrauded on the pretext of linking her PAN (permanent account number) to her bank account
A woman was defrauded of ₹1.99 lakh on the pretext of linking her PAN (permanent account number) to her bank account, police said on Thursday.
The complainant, Mohini Gupta, a resident of Sector 8, said she received a call from a man who claimed to be an employee of HDFC Bank on December 9. The caller told her that her PAN needed to be linked to her bank account, and offered to do so. When Gupta agreed, he asked her to share the OTPs (one-time passwords) sent to her number. She shared two OTPs with the caller, only to later realise that ₹1.99 lakh had been debited from her account.
A case was registered under Sections 419, ( cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered at the cyber crime police station, Chandigarh.
Cyber awareness campaign
With city residents increasingly falling prey to cyber frauds, the Chandigarh cyber police teams convened ‘awareness assembly’ in Sector 17 to sensitise the Market Welfare Association, Residence Welfare Association and senior citizens about cyber security.
The participants were apprised of the modus operandi of cyber fraudsters such as posing as officers of financial institutions or the electricity department, claiming to call from Canada, and through loan applications.
They were encouraged to use a strong password, use two-step factor authentication, and take precautions while using debit and ATM cards, and scanning QR codes. They were told to avoid clicking on unauthenticated links, share identity proofs with care and to look up customer care numbers on official sites.
