Every time her landline rings, Shanta Srinivasan, from T. Nagar, gets the jitters. A few days ago, she became a target of vishing and was cheated of close to ₹1.8 lakh by a conman.
The police said that senior citizens should be wary as fraudsters were calling landlines posing as bank officials. Vishing or voice phishing is a practice of making calls, especially posing as bank officials, and convincing people to divulge their bank details, OTP and other credentials. This year, the Anti-Bank Fraud Wing of the CCB unearthed a gang running a vishing racket from Delhi.
One such gang called Ms. Shanta on December 28. “I had just returned from the temple when the landline phone rang. The person on the other end introduced himself as Ravikumar, manager of a private bank on Bazullah Road.
He said he wanted to update my husband’s card and then mentioned the card number too. He said he wanted us to avoid going to the bank and promised to send the upgraded debit card home,” she said.
Trusting him, she divulged all the details he asked for and also shared the OTP numbers multiple times. Later, the same person called and said her card was due for an upgrade and she shared the details.
“Later in the evening, I got messages on the phone about the money debited from our account,” she said.
An officer said at least 10 petitions were received by each cybercrime wing functioning under different Deputy Commissioners.
