BENGALURU: A Rs 441 refund query turned into a Rs 1-lakh nightmare for a 49-year-old woman, who lost money from two bank accounts after calling a number she mistook for an e-commerce company’s customer care helpline.Homemaker Prema (name changed) told police she ordered clothes through an e-commerce site, but returned them as they did not fit her. The Horamavu resident requested a refund of Rs 441 a couple of weeks ago, which remained pending.On October 31, she searched the internet and found the number 8893978138 listed as the company’s customer care number and spoke to a person, who identified himself as Tushar Singh.The caller guided her through various steps to process the refund and asked her to click on a link and enter details.As the process was taking a long time, her phone screen went blank and displayed a message asking her to wait for the refund.Sensing something was wrong, Prema switched off her phone and removed her sim card.However, when she switched on the phone again, she noticed unauthorised transactions from her bank accounts: Rs 90,000 had been withdrawn from one of her accounts and Rs 15,000 from another one.The transactions took place between 11.14am and 11.17am on October 31. She told police Tushar Singh had siphoned off her money through a digital payment application.
Damaged curd packet leads to Rs 98,000 cyber fraud
In a separate incident in October, a 56-year-old homemaker lost Rs 98,000 to cyber fraud after ordering a packet of curd on Blinkit, finding it damaged and searching online for a customer care number to claim a refund.She was allegedly duped after contacting fraudsters posing as customer care representatives and following a link they sent her on WhatsApp.According to a complaint filed by Soundarya (name changed), a resident of an apartment on Palace Cross Road in Vasanth Nagar, she had ordered the curd on October 17. When the packet arrived in a damaged condition, she complained to the delivery agent, who advised her to contact customer care.
