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Indians are dealing with a sharp spike in cases of online scams. Over the past few months, thousands of people have fallen prey and lost lakhs to unknown cyber hawkers.
In a recent case from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a woman allegedly lost Rs 1.38 lakh after falling for a courier delivery scam.
According to a report by The Times of India, Mitiksha Sheth, a 25-year-old fashion designer, was cheated out of Rs 1.38 lakh after she clicked on a link to receive her parcel. The victim was reportedly waiting for a parcel of cloth pieces that she had given to a tailor in Paldi to be stitched. Once the order was completed, the tailor informed her that the order had been sent for delivery. However, even after 2-3 days of the call, when the victim received her parcel, she started tracking the order using the courier details provided by the tailor.
“On May 11, I suddenly remembered that I had given cloth pieces to a tailor in Paldi to be stitched. He told me that he had already sent across the stitched clothes through a courier firm. Since I did not receive the parcel for two days after the call, I tracked it on google,” said Sheth in her complaint.
However, a few minutes after tracking the parcel on a website, the victim received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as an employee of the courier firm. He further informed her that he had her parcel and it will be delivered once the delivery fee is paid. He further requested the victim to pay a fee of Rs 5 to receive the parcel.
The caller further shared a link with the victim for the payment. Following the introduction, the victim paid Rs 5 through the link. However, after the payment, she was once again asked to pay Rs 5 as an additional fee. “After the second transaction, I suspected an online fraud and so I deactivated my bank account. I did not use my cellphone between May 13 and May 21 since I was on a trip,” the victim further revealed.
However, a few days after the call, when the victim checked her account, her bank balance was low on funds. “Later, when I tried to send some money to my friend, I found that my account did not have enough balance,” she revealed.
To check furter, the victim visited the bank branch the next day and obtained her statement, which showed that Rs 1.38 lakh had been debited from her account in four transactions on May 12 and May 13. Upon realising that she had been scammed and that the scammers had successfully taken money from her account, the victim called the cybercrime helpline and lodged a complaint of cheating and breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology (IT) Act.
While the case is under investigation, the cybercrime department has been warning people to be aware of scams. People are asked not to share any confidential information like OTP or passwords with anyone, and never click on any suspicious links for payments. As in the above case, the scammer was able to gain access to the victim’s account when she clicked on the phishing link. To avoid scams, awareness is the key and people are asked to be vigilant about any such unknown calls
