A retired IAS officer has allegedly been cheated out of Rs 50,000 after his mother’s cheque was rejected by the bank on a “technical ground” and he called a number for help that he came across while looking for the bank’s customer care number online.
Police said the number which the former bureaucrat called was a fraudulent one, which imposters had uploaded on the search engine. A man in South Dinajpur has been arrested in connection with the case.
“The retired IAS officer, a resident of Salt Lake Sector II, mentioned in his complaint that his elderly mother had drawn a cheque for Rs 2.5 lakh on a nationalised bank. But the bank rejected the cheque on some technical grounds,” said an officer in the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate.
“He then started searching for the customer care number of the bank on the internet and found a number. On dialling it, he was asked to download an app on his phone. He did so and lost around Rs 50,000.”
The retired officer lodged a complaint with the cybercrime police station of the commissionerate in January, based on which an investigation has been started.
“We followed the money trail and tracked down the accused,” the officer said.
Accused Adhirias Kesh, who hails from South Dinajpur, has been arrested. He has been booked under IPC sections on cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy.
Police officers not related to the case said scamsters often manipulate search engines to ensure fraudulent numbers appear on the top of the list that the internet throws up after a search.
People tend to believe those numbers are genuine, call them up and fall into a trap.
Recently, a private company on Sarat Bose Road lodged a complaint with Kolkata police alleging that it had been duped when one of its employees called a number he found on the Net to book Schengen visas for two of its executives.
“One must visit a company’s official website for its customer care number. Random searches on the internet may lead you to a fraudulent phone number,” said a senior officer of the Bengal police.