Chandigarh: Man picks hotel’s phone number from internet, duped of ₹28,000

The victim, Jaswinder Singh Bedi, told the Chandigarh Police that he wanted to book a room at Hotel Shivalikview, Sector 17, and contacted its number after looking it up online

A man searching the internet for a hotel’s phone number to book a room ended up losing ₹28,000 to a fraudster.

Chandigarh Police cautioned people against looking for phone numbers online and advised to obtain such information only from reliable sources. (Shutterstock)

The victim, Jaswinder Singh Bedi, told the police that he wanted to book a room at Hotel Shivalikview, Sector 17, and looked for its contact number online.

On calling the phone number, he was asked to share the OTP sent to his mobile phone for confirming the booking.

But when he shared the OTP, ₹28,000 were deducted from his bank account through two transactions, following which he approached the police.

On his complaint, police registered a case under Sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at the cyber crime police station.

Police officials cautioned people against looking for phone numbers online and advised to obtain such information only from reliable sources.