New Delhi:
Be cautious while searching for customer care numbers of e-commerce websites on the internet as fraudsters have flooded search engines with fake sites and numbers to cheat people by making them reveal their account details.
Renu Gupta learned about this the hard way when her daughter ended up on a similar fake website of a popular ecommerce portal. A man posing as a customer care representative not only emptied the woman’s bank account but even sent her messages showing the transactions he was making and mocked her saying, “ Ab paisa gaya” (now your money is gone).
Gupta, who runs a boutique in Rohini Sector-24 in New Delhi, said that they had ordered a handbag from a popular e-commerce website but were not satisfied with the quality of the product and so decided to return it. On March 1, her daughter got the number of the customer service representative of the portal after googling it.
“The man posed as a representative and while talking to my daughter he managed to make her share the account details on the pretext of transferring the refund amount. I soon started receiving messages of withdrawals being made from my account and before I could get the card blocked, the man had already taken Rs 15,000,” Gupta said.
The woman shared the incident with her bank officials and asked them if it was safe to keep the remainder amount in the account as she had to pay the EMI of her house. She was assured that no harm would be done since the ATM card had been blocked.
“The hacker used UPI to hack into my account and to mock me, he even sent me messages on WhatsApp showing the transfers being made. My husband called him up and requested him to give back the money, but he snapped back,” the woman said, adding that in total she lost approximately Rs 52,000 in the fraud. Despite more than a week after the incident, the cops are yet to register a case.
Cops said fraudsters have flooded the search engines with fake customer care numbers that are being used to dupe scores of people. The customers who are seeking a refund are trapped into sharing confidential details by the accused who then quickly empty the accounts.
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