Online fraud a worry for citizens

​Hyderabad: The city police, which is grappling with the drug menace now, has another problem to handle and that is online fraud by some tricksters who claim to be either bank officials or from the legal department and cheat the public.

The fraudsters located in Jamtara in Jharkhand get client information from outsourced bank agencies and make random calls to some people claiming that they are from SBI or some other bank and defraud the gullible on online.

The modus operandi is that outsourced bank agencies charge Rs 100 per client details. After getting the details, the gang buys a SIM by submitting fake address proof. They then start making random calls saying that they are bank officials. They mention the account number of the customer based on the information they obtained from the outsourced agencies and try to scare them saying they had not linked their account with Aadhar card and hence the account would be frozen.

Narrating their experience to The Hans India, one of the recent victim said that a Hindi speaking guy had forced him to provide details of debit card including its expiry date and security number on the back of the card. Vishnu (name changed), who works in a private company said, the person who called him told him about his failure to link the account to Aadhar card and scared him that his debit card would be blocked.

Vishnu revealed the details of the card and to his dismay he found that within few minutes, Rs 6000 was withdrawn from his account. According to Vishnu, he was also shocked to see that one of the victims was the wife of a police official working in DGP office who was defrauded of Rs 50,000 in a similar style.

Cybercrime officials said that based on such complaints, they had sent their teams to Jharkhand but could not achieve much success. People should understand that in any such demands made by someone on phone claiming to be bank employees should be verified from their bank branch. There is no need for them to get unduly worried, the officials said.

Police said that there have been instances where these fraudsters had cheated people to the tune ranging from Rs 70,000 to Rs one lakh saying that there were huge dues on their credit cards and the bank had already issued a legal notice to them to which they did not respond and hence a case was about to be filed in a court of law. They tell the customers that the process can be stopped if they immediately transfer the amount. They give some account number to which the money needs to be transferred. Once the money is transferred they switch off their phones.

Telangana police say that there has not been enough cooperation from Jharkhand police, when they sent their teams to track the gang. Some of the cops who travelled to Jamtara expressed lack of enthusiasm from the local police in controlling the menace. Even the bank account in which money is transferred does not have photo identity.