Mumbai Crime: Man loses Rs 1 lakh on digital wallet platform

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Anil Padam Singh, 23, a resident of Sakinaka, lost Rs 1 lakh from his digital wallet account, when he thought he called a reputable finance firm regarding the EMIs on his new mobile phone. It turns out that the finance company's phone number he took from Google, was false. An FIR has been filed against unknown people.

How he was cheated

Singh, in his complaint to Sakinaka police, said, "I called on the finance company's customer executive number available on Google, to check the EMI status of my new phone. The executive who picked up the call after checking my details, told me they would close the loan account and asked if I had a Google pay account."

Singh said, "After my Google Pay account received a payment request which I accepted, within minutes there were four transactions of Rs 20,000, Rs 25,000, Rs 50,000 and Rs 5,000 from my account. I called back on the number and was told the money would be refunded as the transactions took place by mistake. Later when I called the number, it was switched off." A cop said, "Fraudsters come up with new ideas to cheat people. This seems to be a new modus operandi in which the person lost his money after accepting a request on Google Pay."

Also Read: This is how Google's digital payment app 'Tez' works

Similar case

In a similar incident, Amol Chandrakant, 45, a manager with a private firm, lodged a complaint with Bhoiwada police, saying he received a call on his wife's phone by her cousin, who said his Google pay account was not working due to a technical error and the R4,500 he (Chandrakant) was to transfer to his CA, was sent to a wrong account. A person claiming to be a Google Pay executive was on a conference call with them.

He took Chandrakant's Google Pay account number to transfer the money. When he got a message saying 'refund to Amol,' and the executive asked him to click on it, R57,900 was debited from the account. When he called the executive, he was told the money would be refunded, but the number was later switched off.

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A senior cop said, "We have been carrying out an awareness drive about cyber frauds. People have to be very careful when sharing their details with unknown persons or accepting unknown requests on app based accounts. After debit and credit fraud, nowadays fraudsters use such modus operandi to cheat people."

Also Read: Zuckerberg vs Sharma: WhatsApp Pay can gobble up Paytm

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