Mumbai woman tries to buy whisky online, duped of ₹5.35 lakh

The police said that they have written to her bank to freeze the account numbers of the accused and see if they can get any money sealed.

Mumbai A 27-year-old woman from Dahisar lost ₹5.35 lakh to frauds who posed as wine shop executives and cheated her on the pretext of delivering a bottle of whisky to their home.

According to the complainant, who works with a private company, on Tuesday around 9 pm, she suddenly remembered that she needed a whisky bottle to decorate and design a cake (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The frauds duped her initially on the pretext of putting codes and later in the name of returning her money, also enticed her to increase her debit card limit that helped the fraudsters withdraw more money from her account within a span of just 12 hours, said the police.

According to the complainant, who works with a private company, on Tuesday around 9 pm, she suddenly remembered that she needed a whisky bottle to decorate and design a cake. She accordingly searched online and found the number of Silver Wines in Dahisar.

“The woman was told by a person who posed as the sales executive at the wine shop that though the shop was closed, he can deliver a bottle in 10 minutes and asked her to send money through a QR code. The woman accordingly made a payment of ₹550. She was then told that one of the delivery executives will soon call her,” said an officer from MHB police station.

Accordingly, the woman got a call from one man who posed as the sales executive. The man told her that registration was compulsory to get alcohol delivered at home and one of their executives will help in doing so. The next executive who called her told her to go on mobile payments service Google Pay and asked her to put receipt number in place of amount the number is 19,051 after doing so she immediately got a message that ₹19,051 was transferred from her account

The woman immediately told the executive about the same, when he said that there was nothing to worry about as there was some error in the system and she should redo the entire process again to get back her lost money. The woman accordingly again lost ₹19,051, said a police officer.

The woman again called the executive who told her this time instead of crediting the amount, the system was debiting the amount and there was some problem.

“He told her to give her bank account details. He asked her to share debit/credit card details to get the money back. The woman even shared the CVV number and the validity on the card and even increased the card limit. The accused later withdrew ₹48,000 and ₹96,045. He then told her that he will transfer all the money to her at one go and further asked her to transfer ₹95,051 and ₹1,71,754. The woman lost ₹5.35 lakhs till Wednesday noon when the accused stopped answering her calls,” said a police officer.

The police said that they have written to her bank to freeze the account numbers of the accused and see if they can get any money sealed.