Zirakpur, December 20: Despite repeated alerts by banks and the police, people continue to fall victim to online fraudsters.
The latest is a youth of Zirakpur, who was duped of his money after he shared one-time passwords (OTPs) with a fraudster, who in turn used it for making online purchase worth Rs 20,000 through Paytm.
On December 13, the victim, Gurvinder Singh, received a call on his cellphone from the number 7303941262 and the person, who spoke in Hindi, introduced himself as an executive of the SBI, where the complainant had a credit card.
The victim alleged that the caller then transferred the call to his senior, who introduced himself as a bank branch manager to the victim. The so-called manager then cross-checked the victim’s card details, including his name, CVV number, date of birth and then asked for OTPs for redeeming reward points.
The victim then received OTPs on his registered mobile number, which he shared twice when requested by a telephone caller pretending to be a manager of the SBI.
The incident came to light when Gurvinder Singh received a message on his mobile phone that Rs 20,000 had been used from his credit card account through Paytm.
It was at this juncture that the victim realised that he had become the victim of an online fraud and immediately called bank officials and asked them to block his credit card. Meanwhile, the victim has also lodged a complaint at the cyber crime cell, Mohali.
Explaining the modus operandi of the fraudsters, experts say most of the telephone calls originate from Mumbai. These fraudsters generally use specific mobile numbers for such calls. They transfer the money acquired through such frauds to online money wallets like Paytm, MobiKwik and PayUMoney.
