83-year-old Chandigarh woman loses ₹9.93 lakh to scammer
Took her debit card details and withdrew money from her bank account through five transactions.
Fraudsters stole Rs 9.93 lakh from the account of an 83-year-old woman after offering her help regarding an issue with her bank account alerts.
In her complaint, Sunita Dhawan of Sector 23 told the police that her mother received her pension in her Punjab National Bank account.
Lately, her mother had not been getting alerts of her bank transactions. Therefore, she looked up the bank’s customer care number online on November 27, but got no answer to her call.
After sometime, someone called her, claiming to be a bank customer care executive and asked what she needed help with. When she explained her concern, the caller sent a web link on her mobile phone.
He told his mother to fill up the form through the web link and took her debit card number and PIN details.
He said she will get multiple alerts for one-time passwords (OTPs) due to a server issue, and asked to share all OTPs with him, while assuring that the bank alerts will resume soon after.
On November 30, the elderly woman received text messages about five transactions from her account, totaling Rs 9.93 lakh.
Therefore, the family approached the police and a case under Sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) was registered at the Sector 17 station.