Trader loses 83,000 on the pretext of updating KYC details

A 32-year-old trader from Andheri lost Rs 83,000 when a fraudster posing as a customer care representative of a popular payment app made him pay Rupee 1. The fraudster on the pretext of updating his Know Your Customer (KYC) details lured the trader into a trap and duped him.

According to the Andheri police, the trader recently received an SMS from an unknown mobile number informing him that his e-wallet account has been deactivated as he failed to update his KYC details on time. When the trader contacted on the given number, the call was answered by some Dipak Sharma who introduced himself as a customer care representative of the payment app.

Sharma told the trader to visit the website of the payment app and asked him to login and pay Rupee 1. Unaware of the fraud, the trader followed the instructions and as soon as he paid Rupee 1 he was shocked to find multiple transactions from his account. A total of Rs 83,121 were transferred from his account through multiple transactions, said a police officer.

Due to lockdown guidelines and pandemic scare, the trader did not lodge his complaint. But finally, on Monday, he visited the Andheri police station and registered his complaint.

"We have registered an offence under the Indian Penal

Code (IPC) sections of cheating by personation (419), cheating (420) and have added sections of the Information Technology act.

“We have written the bank to provide the account details in which the money was transferred and also asked the mobile service providers to give details of the fraudster's mobile number, " said a police official.