Elderly woman loses ₹40 lakh in insurance fraud

According to the police, the complainant, a resident of Dadar (West), took voluntary retirement from the post of a senior executive in 2020 from MTNL

Mumbai: A 61-year-old woman lost nearly ₹40 lakh after an accused posed as an executive from Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) India and asked her to pay the amount as premiums and service charges under the pretext of offering her an insurance policy that can get her ₹70 lakh on maturity.

The person told her that the ₹40 lakh premium of the policy could be paid in instalments and once she paid the last instalment, she would get ₹70 lakh plus a ₹1.70 lakh bonus (HT PHOTO)

According to the police, the complainant, a resident of Dadar (West), took voluntary retirement from the post of a senior executive in 2020 from MTNL. She stated that in 2015, a person who identified himself as a fund manager from Life Secure and Tax Savings Policy called her and informed her that she had earned ₹1.70 lakh on her LIC policy number IR/3103/B095.

They said that the corporation will release the money to her only after she takes another policy worth ₹40 lakh.

The person told her that the ₹40 lakh premium of the policy could be paid in instalments and once she paid the last instalment, she would get ₹70 lakh plus a ₹1.70 lakh bonus from her previous policy, said a police officer.

She started paying the premiums and various other fees and service charges to accounts of various ‘executives’ as directed by the accused. Between May 2015-July 2020 the senior citizen paid a total of ₹39.66 lakh. Whenever she would ask for the details of the policy and its maturity period, the executives would ignore her and give some future date under some false pretext, states the FIR.

The cons later started ignoring her calls. For more than a year, the complainant followed the matter with the accused, later she eventually realised that she was being duped and approached the police.

Dadar police have registered a case against three accused executives under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Information Technology Act for cheating, impersonation and identity theft. Police suspect that the fraud group used LIC’s name to dupe its policyholder.

The police have started writing to various banks seeking details of the accounts where the fraud amount was received.

Police and cyber experts say ‘Insurance Frauds’ are the most common type of cyber-crimes committed against senior citizens. “In cyber-crimes like Insurance Frauds around 90% of victims are senior citizens,” said a deputy commissioner of police rank officer.

A senior cyber police officer said that to target senior citizens, especially in insurance frauds, the fraudsters group mainly rely on the customer database, because when a fraudster has customer data then it becomes easy for him to win his/her trust and it ultimately increases their productivity rate.

“The insurance companies share their customer database with third-party BPO firms to promote their schemes, retain customers, and expand the business. The customer database of insurance companies thus gets compromised at BPOs at the hands of rogue employees and it is sold out to fraudsters online and then they further target innocent senior citizens using the compromised database,” a senior inspector said.