Bengaluru: A 30-year-old Non-Resident Indian (NRI) under quarantine in Mumbai lost more than Rs 1 lakh to cyber criminals while booking a flight ticket to Bengaluru.
Aravind Jayaram, technology consultant for a bank in Oman and resident of Banashankari II Stage, found an airline’s contact number online but ended up calling a fraudster, who claimed to be representative of the airline. He asked for Aravind’s bank credentials and siphoned off over Rs 1 lakh from his account.
The NRI was in Sri Lanka when international flights were cancelled due to Covid-19. He returned to Mumbai in a Vande Bharat flight on May 29 and was packed off to institutional quarantine for seven days. During his stay, he googled to book a Bengaluru flight, found a SpiceJet link and called the phone number provided.
“The receiver introduced himself as a SpiceJet representative at the ticket booking office. He told me I will receive a code from a number and will have to send it to another number, which he provided me. I sent the code and got a message from a third number, seeking details like UPI PIN in order to send a refund amount of Rs 25. But soon, I received a message saying Rs 5,000 had been debited from my account,” narrated Aravind.
He immediately called his bank’s customer care but got no response. “I also sent an email to block my account,” Aravind added. But in the next few hours, he got messages of Rs 99,995 having been debited from his account in five transactions.
11/06/20 Kiran Parashar/Times of India
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Aravind Jayaram, technology consultant for a bank in Oman and resident of Banashankari II Stage, found an airline’s contact number online but ended up calling a fraudster, who claimed to be representative of the airline. He asked for Aravind’s bank credentials and siphoned off over Rs 1 lakh from his account.
The NRI was in Sri Lanka when international flights were cancelled due to Covid-19. He returned to Mumbai in a Vande Bharat flight on May 29 and was packed off to institutional quarantine for seven days. During his stay, he googled to book a Bengaluru flight, found a SpiceJet link and called the phone number provided.
“The receiver introduced himself as a SpiceJet representative at the ticket booking office. He told me I will receive a code from a number and will have to send it to another number, which he provided me. I sent the code and got a message from a third number, seeking details like UPI PIN in order to send a refund amount of Rs 25. But soon, I received a message saying Rs 5,000 had been debited from my account,” narrated Aravind.
He immediately called his bank’s customer care but got no response. “I also sent an email to block my account,” Aravind added. But in the next few hours, he got messages of Rs 99,995 having been debited from his account in five transactions.
11/06/20 Kiran Parashar/Times of India
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