Another online fraud case has been registered with police recently. A Mumbai man working as a deputy manager with a mobile service provider became the latest victim of illegal online activity after he placed a home delivery order for a wine bottle on 12th October. He lost Rs 1.25 lakh from his Mobikwik-e-wallet soon after placing the order. He got the number from a search engine. “Three transactions were carried out in an hour and the money was siphoned off using my credit card details. I have got home delivery from the same wine shop in the past. Hence, I didn’t doubt the authenticity of the contact number.
The person at the other end was polite and took my order. He told me there was no cash on delivery and asked for my credit card details,” the victim was quoted by TOI.
He registered his complaint at Andheri East police station the next day and also informed the owner of Ujwal Wines. The owner of the wine shop had also complained about his shop name being misused to deceive customers who place an order for delivery. Although many negative reviews warned the customer to avoid purchasing from the Ujwal store, yet several victims fell prey t it. The complaint told the police that he did not doubt the owner as the person was polite. He had placed orders before also and orders were delivered successfully.
“We are tracking the contact numbers of the fraudsters that were posted under the name of Ujwal Wines. The shop owner says he has even complained to the search engine to remove the contact number listed for his wine shop,” the police said.
The victim claimed that he lost Rs 1.25 lakh between10.20 pm and 11.15 pm after he got convinced by culprits to reveal his credit card number and one-time password (OTP). A message of a transaction of Rs 31,777 was received by the complainant at first. When he informed, he was told that it was an error and transaction would be reversed immediately. And then there was a message of the second transaction of the same amount. At 11.15 a final transaction of 61,000 happened after which the complainant blocked the card.
“The fraudster took my card details again, but there was the second transaction of Rs 31,777. The final transaction was done at 11.15 pm for Rs 61,000. Realizing I had been duped, I blocked my card and lodged a complaint with the bank,” said the victim. An FIR has been registered against mobile numbers 7027043565 and 8723877079. Unfortunately, all the money had been taken out before the culprits’ e-wallet got blocked.
It is not the first case of online fraud. Many such incidents took place in India in the last few months. Economic Times reported a woman from Bengaluru lost all her amount from her bank account when she dialed a fake Zomato call center which she got from some search engine. Transacting online has its advantages as well as disadvantages.