PUNE: A 70-year-old woman was a recent victim of mobile wallet fraud after unidentified fraudsters asked the woman to download a mobile application to keep her Paytm account active. The woman did as instructed by the fraudster and lost Rs 1 lakh from her bank account. An FIR has been lodged with the Yerwada police station against unidentified persons. Police officials said that the bank details of the victim were stolen after she downloaded the mobile application.
In another incident, a 22-year-old girl lost Rs 1.05 lakh after fraudsters who pretended to be calling from Paytm asked her to click on links sent by them.
In the third incident, a scamster posed as a Paytm employee and asked a woman to complete her KYC on Paytm and robbed her of Rs 47,000. The victim who is a resident of Balewadi has lodged a cheating case with Chatuhshringi police station.
While fraudsters are laying different traps to scam people, officials of the city cyber police station said that there has been a massive reduction in cases of Paytm frauds. Officials claimed that the persistent efforts taken by them to prevent such incidents is now yielding results.
Speaking on Paytm fraud cases in the city, Police Inspector Jayram Paigude said that they are working on solutions to reduce such incidents in the city from last few years. “Earlier we would receive about 15 such complaints on a daily basis where people were scammed by fraudsters who identified themselves as staffs of Paytm. This number has now reduced drastically to about 1 or 2 in a day. All thanks to massive awareness campaign through different media platforms. We also made people aware through street plays,” added Paigude.
Speaking on the different traps by fraudsters, officials of the cyber police station said that initially fraudster would call people and phish their data on the pretext of filling their KYC forms. Later, as many people had already completed their KYC, fraudsters started phishing bank data of people on the pretext of updating their KYC forms. The fraudsters were not limited to this and then started using mobile application to phish bank data of people. In many other such cases, fraudsters contact people via email, SMS or job websites and convince them that they would receive money in their accounts. However, when people would click on those links they would end up losing money from their accounts.
PI Jayram Paigude said that fraudsters are also using mobile applications like TeamViewer, QuickSupport and so people should be aware of such applications so that they do not fall prey to such frauds.
Speaking on common mistakes committed by people before they fall to such scam, Paigude said that some people share their PIN, OTP, passwords and fall in traps and end up losing their own money. “We are in touch with Paytm officials to save people from such frauds. Victims of such scams should immediately approach us,” added Paigude.
