The BKC police have come across a case wherein Padmaja Mohanty, a 24-year-old woman, was duped of Rs 40,000 by a conman, who hacked her e-wallet.
The fraudster posed as a customer care executive of an online shopping website and used the victim's e-wallet to siphon off the money to another account to confuse the police.
According to BKC police, the victim had made a purchase from a website but had not received it. So, she wrote an email to the website asking them to refund her money. Soon, she received a call from the hacker, who on the pretext of refunding the money, obtained her debit card information and One Time Password (OTP). He then transferred the money from her account to her e-wallet.
"As I received a call soon after I wrote an email to the website, I did not suspect and thought it to be a 'procedure of refunding'. I gave him my OTP too, and he said the money will be refunded shortly. But, soon after the call, I began receiving a barrage of text messages stating that the money has been transferred from my bank account to my e-wallet. I couldn't open my e-wallet thereafter, as he had hacked into it, and changed my password. Upon checking my account balance, I realised all the money was gone," Mohanty told DNA.
"The fraudster used the e-wallet to mislead us as he transferred the money to different mobile wallets. During the course of the probe that has been initiated, we found that the money was transferred to different e-wallets registered through phone numbers that were procured using fake IDs. Once the money got deposited to the e-wallets, they were further transferred to different bank accounts. The source of these accounts were traced to Patna, in Bihar," said an officer from BKC police station
Shubham Singh, Cyber crime expert says, "For fraudsters, using digital wallets is an easier option because the bank account number obtained gets added to the wallet and the OTP gets generated instantly. Once the OTP is shared, the money gets transferred, and the trail ends. People should never share OTPs, e-wallet credentials, or any other detail.
Analysis: Fraudsters keep coming up with ingenious ways to rob people off their money.The smartphone apps designed to help users are believed to be the prime target of cyber criminals now, chief among them being social media apps and e-wallets. However, debit/credit card frauds in the city are still on the rise.
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