A woman who was planning a family vacation came across a phone number during a Google search that was shown to be the number of a hotel in Puri and was duped into clicking a link sent to her on WhatsApp.
The central Kolkata resident lost Rs 96,000, debited from her account within moments of clicking the link, police said.
“On dialling the number, thinking it was that of the hotel, she was told to make an advance payment of Rs 12,000 for booking a room. She did as asked. But then the person over the phone, who claimed to be the manager of the hotel, said the transfer was not reflecting in the hotel’s account because of some technical reasons,” said an officer of the cybercrime cell of the central division of the city police.
The woman had sent the money to a UPI number that was shared with her through a WhatsApp message.
“The fraudster called the woman back saying they were going to send a link to her phone through which she was asked to make the payment again. She was told the amount would be adjusted if the earlier payment went through,” the officer said.
The woman apparently clicked the link and soon found Rs 84,000 had been debited from her bank account.
Realising the fraud, she reported the matter to Muchipara police station in north Kolkata and the cyber crime cell of the central division. The cell started an investigation and contacted the victim’s bank.
The money was found to have been transferred to an account in a branch in Uttarakhand, the police said.
“Most of the money that was duped out of the woman has been recovered. The cyber crime cell has been able to recover Rs 88,900 of the Rs 96,000 that was fraudulently transferred from the victim’s account,” said a senior officer at Lalbazar.
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