In yet another instance of online cheating, two college lecturers in Kottayam have fallen prey to the most simple tricks of online fraud after they shared the One Time Password (OTP) over phone to lose ₹1.80 lakh.
The cheating came to light when one of the victims, who lost ₹1.42 lakh, lodged a police complaint. The case has now been referred to the police cyber cell.
As per the complaint, the complainant received a text message in the name of State Bank of India stating that a new ATM card had been issued. Soon, an anonymous caller posing as a bank official rang up, seeking the OTP sent to the victim’s phone for activating the card.
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The victim realised his folly only when he received mobile alerts about the loss of .₹1.42 lakh from his account in different instalments. The customer soon rushed to the bank and on his request, the bank officials suspended further transactions from his account.
From Chhattisgarh
Cyber cell officials found that the money had been transferred to an e-wallet and was withdrawn later. The origin of the phone call was traced to a village in Chhattisgarh.
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“It will be a hard task to trace out the fraudsters as they must have carried out these transactions using fake documents,” said a cyber cell official.
It was later revealed that the fraudsters had approached severalemployees of the same institution and could trick one more teacher by deploying the same modus operandi.