A 67-year-old retired government employee who wanted to cancel his railway tickets inadvertently came across a fraudulent IRCTC helpline on the internet. The scammer promised to help the victim, induced him to download a remote access application on his phone and siphoned Rs4.5 lakh from his bank account.

Details of fraud

According to police, the complainant had booked three train tickets for travel to Uttar Pradesh on October 21. Later, for some reason, he cancelled two tickets on October 17 through the IRCTC website.

However, when the victim did not get the status of his cancelled tickets, he surfed the internet for IRCTC’s helpline number. The victim called the number and was told that a senior officer would call him back shortly. After that the victim received a call from another person who asked him to download a remote access app.

Case registered under Section 420

After the victim downloaded the app, the victim was asked to share the app code. The accused then asked the victim to share his bank account details and siphoned money from his account. The victim then got his bank account blocked and made an online complaint.

The police on Thursday registered a case under Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.

FPJ Cyber Secure |