A woman who had applied for a credit card and received a purported “rejection letter” through email from the bank has allegedly been duped out of Rs 12.75 lakh by a man who contacted her posing as a bank official with an offer to “reinitiate” her application.
According to the complaint lodged by the woman with Lalbazar and Charu Market police station, the fraudster had asked for her KYC (Know Your Customer) documents such as Aadhaar, PAN and debit cards and then convinced her to share with him the screen of her mobile phone.
The woman mentioned in her complaint that she received eight OTPs before realising that Rs 12.75 lakh had been debited from her account.
Police said the complaint, lodged on February 23, mentions that the woman had applied for a credit card but the bank sent her an email on February 10 saying the application had been rejected.
“She has complained that on February 22, she received a call from a man who introduced himself as Sandeep Jat, an official of the bank where she had applied for the credit card. He started making queries about the rejection email from the bank,” said an officer at the Calcutta police headquarters in Lalbazar.
The man asked for her personal identity documents saying he was going to “reinitiate” the application for the credit card, the woman told the police.
According to the complaint, the man made multiple video calls to her number, first asking for a photograph of the microchip on her debit card, then a photograph of her entire debit card and finally convinced her to share her mobile phone’s screen on the pretext of checking the OTP which he said he was about to send.
The woman told the police that she received a few OTPs in the next few minutes, while on a video call with the fraudster.
“The woman got suspicious when she received an OTP to generate a payment of Rs 1,94,500 to an e-wallet. When she asked what the OTP was about, she was told not to panic and that it was sent to ascertain whether the system was working. The woman then stopped the screen-sharing process and disconnected the call. But after that, according to her complaint, she received eight OTP notifications and seven debit messages,” said the officer.
The woman reported that a total of Rs 12.75 lakh had been debited from her account.
The woman lodged a complaint with the police and also reported the matter to her bank requesting the authorities to freeze her account.
The police said the entire amount had been transferred to an e-wallet.
“Fraudsters dupe people by transferring money into e-wallets opened with fake documents. Such wallets are difficult to trace. Before the trail of money can be traced, it is withdrawn in cash,” said an officer experienced in handling cyber crimes.