An elderly Kolkatan who was scared that his SIM card would be blocked unless he updated his KYC lost Rs 12 lakh to online fraudsters.
Subir Kumar Chaudhuri, a retired resident of Thakurpukur in southwest Kolkata’s Behala area, received a call in February from a man who claimed to be a representative of a telecom service provider.
He allegedly convinced Chaudhuri to download a mobile app and asked him to carry out a small transaction of Rs 10.06.
“My father was on the phone for around four hours. For the first two hours he was speaking from his own phone and in the next two hours, the fraudsters contacted him through my mother’s number so that he could use his own phone to simultaneously carry out the banking transactions as told by the fraudsters. I was not home at that time,” son Amitava said.
The family lodged a complaint with Thakurpukur police station and also reported the matter to the anti-bank fraud section of Lalbazar. No one has yet been arrested and the money has not been recovered.
The caller had first asked Chaudhuri to download an application named “Quick Support” on his phone and make a transaction of Rs 10.06 through a link that was sent on his phone.
“My father made the payment. To win his trust, the fraudsters refunded the money and told my father that the transaction had failed. They asked my father if he had any other bank account through which he could try again, which he did,” Amitava said.
The police suspect the fraudsters must have got remote access to Chaudhuri’s phone once he had downloaded the app and by making him carry out two transactions, they had the details of both his bank accounts.
The family said the call came around 12.30pm and lasted four hours.
Around 4pm, Chaudhuri felt he should check both his accounts. He went to his banks and found he had lost Rs 12.23 lakh.