A 31-year-old software developer in Mumbai was allegedly duped of Rs 5.06 lakh by a cyber fraudster pretending to be a customer care executive of an e-wallet company. An FIR in this case was registered at the Borivali police station on April 16. The complainant told the police that he tried to pay his electricity bill for the month of March through an e-wallet. But the electricity bill displayed on the e-wallet app was much more than the actual amount. So, he searched on Google for a helpline number of the e-wallet company. The complainant added that he then dialed a number and a man answered his call, introducing himself as a customer care executive with the e-wallet’s Noida office. The purported customer care executive then asked the victim to download the Anydesk application on his phone. The man was told to type out his bank details on his phone to solve the issue. Notably, the Anydesk application provides third-party access to one’s mobile activities. However, the man told the police he believed the fraudster as the e-wallet company has an office in Noida. The fraud came to light only when the man received a phone call from the SBI informing him that several banking transactions were taking place from his account, but by then Rs 5.06 lakh was siphoned off by cyber criminals. The police said the man was unaware that cyber criminals try to pass off their phone numbers as customer care numbers of banks, e-wallets and online shopping portals, among others.
