Rajkot: A 45-year-old man from Bhavnagar was allegedly duped of Rs 3.26 lakh after a fraudster posing as an ICICI bank employee lured him with an offer for a new credit card and obtained his Aadhaar and PAN details as well as an OTP.The complainant, Ashok Chauhan, who lives in the Meera Park area and works as a helper at Chitra GIDC, received a voice call from an unknown number on the evening of July 8. The caller claimed to be a bank employee and offered him a private bank and RuPay credit card, explaining its benefits.As Chauhan already had an old credit card and was looking for a new one, he agreed to the offer. The caller subsequently sent him a link on WhatsApp and asked him to upload photographs of his Aadhaar and PAN cards. Since the link appeared to be related to the ICICI credit card application process and video KYC, Chauhan did not suspect anything and shared the documents.The accused then obtained an OTP sent to Chauhan’s mobile phone on the pretext of completing video KYC. He subsequently told Chauhan that the new card would be delivered within 24 hours and disconnected the call.On July 13, while checking his iMobile application to pay his credit card bill, Chauhan noticed several transactions that he had not made. The transaction history showed withdrawals of Rs 30,000 and Rs 97,611.93 on July 9, followed by Rs 1,00,694.42 and Rs 97,802.50 on July 10.The four unauthorised transactions amounted to Rs 3.26 lakh, according to the complaint.Chauhan immediately contacted the bank’s customer care service. He was informed that the transactions had been carried out using OTP authentication, following which a complaint was registered.He also reported the fraud to the National Cyber Crime Helpline 1930 on July 13. Police have initiated an investigation based on the transaction details and the cybercrime complaint acknowledgement number.
