A new form of phishing racket, which takes advantage of instant loans offered by banks, has come to light, with one such case being registered with the Charkop police earlier this year.
The fraudsters exploit the gullibility of the customer and loopholes in the existing processes of banks.
Law enforcement agencies have been seeing a rise in cases where fraudsters call their targets posing as executives with their banks, and cheat them into revealing sensitive information like their net banking log in details.
A 35-year-old Kandivali resident, a homemaker, who stays with her husband, in-laws, and daughter, has fallen prey to this modus operandi. She filed an FIR with the Charkop police on July 3.
“I had ₹2.15 lakh in my savings account. On June 29, I received a call from someone claiming to be from my bank, who told me that my debit card had been blocked because I had not linked my account with Aadhaar. He said he would do the needful online and convinced me to share my log in details. After that, I got six one time passwords, which I shared with him, as he claimed it was necessary if I wanted to avoid going to the bank in person,” the complainant said in her statement to the police.
No balance
Later in the day, she said, she tried to withdraw money from an ATM kiosk but found that there was no balance in her account. Suspecting that she had been conned, she got her debit card blocked immediately.
“On June 30, I received an SMS saying that an instant loan of ₹4.22 lakh had been approved in my name and that the money was credited to my account. But within a short span of time, all the money was transferred to several other accounts in different amounts,” she said.
The police have registered a case of cheating under the Indian Penal Code along with sections of the Information Technology Act.
Balsing Rajput, Superintendent of Police, Maharashtra Cyber, said this is a new trend which has been discovered recently.
“The trend highlights the need for a better verification on part of banks before releasing loan amounts. It also reiterates the importance of not sharing sensitive banking details with any person, no matter who they claim to be. No genuine bank official would ever ask for such details,” Mr. Rajput said.
