Man loses Rs 5 lakh while paying utility bill through UPI app

A 31-year-old man was duped of Rs 5 lakh by a cyber-fraudster who posed as an employee of a UPI payment platform and cheated him on the pretext of assisting him. The complainant had contacted the customer care to raise an issue through a search engine, only to be asked to download a screen sharing app and be swindled of Rs 5 lakh. A case has been registered at Borivali police station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal

Code and Information Technology Act.

According to the police, the incident occurred on April 15, when the complainant, who wanted to pay the electricity bill for the month of March through PayTM, noticed that the bill amount showed Rs 1,706 instead of Rs 1,220. Suspecting some issue with the UPI app, the complainant looked up for the customer care number online and contacted one of the results.

Upon calling, the recipient asked the complainant to download AnyDesk app to 'solve the issue', which the victim obliged. Within minutes, he received a call from a man claiming to be from the Noida office of PayTM. He asked the complainant to enter the IFSC number and other privy banking details of several accounts owned by him. Unaware of the fact that all these privy details were seen by the fraudster as well, the complainant kept entering the numbers. The complainant also sent him the photos of the debit cards.

After a while, when the complainant checked his mobile for account balance, he was shocked to see that all his accounts were being drained slowly. Upon calling the customer care personnel, he assured that they were solving the issue and the money would be refunded shortly. However, the complainant lost Rs 5,06,779 in a series of transactions. The fraud came to light only when the bank personnel informed the complainant about unauthorised transactions.

Subsequently the man approached the Borivali Police and lodged a complaint, acting on which a case was registered.