A woman who was tricked through a text message into paying Rs 11 to prevent disconnection of power supply on account of unpaid bills lost Rs 5 lakh in the next 10 seconds.
She called the number mentioned in the message and clicked on a link sent to her.
The Telegraph reported on Sunday about a woman who had lost Rs 50,000 after receiving a text message saying her electricity bill was due and the line would be disconnected.
The duped woman about whom The Telegraph came to know on Tuesday said she had checked the CESC website immediately after receiving the message and found that her last bill was pending. She did not know that CESC does not disconnect power supply like that.
CESC officials said it takes them between one month and three months to disconnect supply because of non-payment of bills.
Kolkata police are investigating the case but the money is yet to be recovered.
“In most such cases, people drop their guard once told that their power supply would be disconnected. It is extremely inconvenient to stay without electricity, especially in summer. Fraudsters are taking advantage of that,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
In this case, the woman complainant, who lives in an apartment off EM Bypass, said she checked with the CESC website after receiving the text message and found that the bill for May was outstanding.
“I tried to pay the bill through the website but the server was not working. It was already 6.30pm and the message I received said they would disconnect supply at 9.30pm. I had only three hours left. I dialled the number mentioned in the text message, thinking it was CESC’s customer care number,” the woman told The Telegraph.
The man who answered the call was speaking in Hindi, she said.
“He said I needed to pay only Rs 11 to avoid disconnection and could pay the rest later. He sent me a link and asked me to make the payment, which I did,” she said.
The woman said she did not receive any OTP or any immediate alert on her phone about the transaction. But on checking her account balance 10 seconds later, she saw Rs 4,99,508.66 had been debited.
“I did not receive an alert asking for an OTP before such a huge amount was debited. Nor did I receive any SMS alert after the money was debited. I received a message and an e-mail about the deduction of Rs 11 around half an hour after I had made the transaction,” she said.
In the majority of such cases, victims are convinced to download an application on their phone and share their passcode that enables remote access of the phone. But in this case, the complainant said she was not made to download any app.
A CESC official said they do not send text messages to their customers about pending bills. “The CESC bill is blue. If the bill remains unpaid after the due date, we send a ‘notice bill’ which is green. There is no fixed window after which the line is disconnected. It varies between one month and three months, depending on the outstanding amount,” he said.