Sohna: 72-yr-old woman duped of FDs in courier scam

Police said the victim wanted to contact a courier firm which was scheduled to deliver her a parcel from Kolkata on the occasion of Durga Puja after the delivery was delayed by several days.

Unidentified suspects were booked for liquidating the fixed deposits of a woman through an online banking facility after hacking into her mobile phone, police said on Tuesday.

The 72 -year-old woman is a resident of a Central Park Flower Valley society in Sohna. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The 72 -year-old woman is a resident of a Central Park Flower Valley society in Sohna. Police said the victim wanted to contact a courier firm which was scheduled to deliver her a parcel from Kolkata on the occasion of Durga Puja after the delivery was delayed by several days.

On October 6, she found the contact number of the firm on the internet which was advertised as customer support. The helpline number didn’t belong to the firm but was used by cyber conmen using false advertising, said police.

A senior police official privy to the investigation said that after calling on the helpline number, the suspect who attended to her call, impersonated an employee of the firm and said, that due to mismatch in her PIN and few other personal details, the parcel was put on hold.

“On pretext of helping her in updating details to deliver the parcel within a couple of hours, the suspect took her personal details like Aadhaar number. They also made her click on a link sent on WhatsApp which downloaded a phishing application which gave her phone’s access to the suspects,” he said.

Investigators said that the victim has a bank account in the branch of a private bank in Gopalpura, Jaipur. On the pretext of making a payment of ₹5 for updating her address, the suspects made her login into her internet banking app and also took her debit card details. The suspects kept her over the WhatsApp call for more than an hour and a half during which they liquidated her fixed deposits and then transferred ₹87,118 from her bank account to another UPI address after linking her phone number with Google Pay.

According to police, the woman later suspected foul play and disconnected the call and immediately rang her bank relationship manager. However, the manager alerted the victim that all her FDs have been liquidated and were debited from her account.

Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said the victim had filed an online cyber fraud complainton October 9 based on which an FIR was registered under sections 318(4) and 319 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanihta at the cybercrime police station on Sunday. “We are trying to trace the suspects and arrest them,” he added.