A Ghatkopar resident recently loset ₹1.23 lakh to cyber fraudsters while trying to return a faulty Air Blower worth ₹999.

The victim, Virendra Kumar Nayak, 36, a carpenter by profession, ordered an Air Blower on August 12. He wanted the Air Blower for cleaning purposes, which he planned to take to his native place. Nayak received the order on August 15, and he paid Rs. 999 via an online mode of transaction. However, when he attempted to use the Air Blower it turned out to be faulty.

Fraudsters duping people with fake numbers on Google

Nayak had ordered the product through an application called Ekart, and he Googled the customer care number of Ekart and dialled to talk about the return of the product. He was told to wait for a call from the company, and Nayak obliged.

A few minutes later, he received a call where the caller introduced himself as an Ekart executive, asked Nayak about the fault in the product and then told him to download three mobile applications from PlayStore – Rustdusk, PhonePe and PayTM – in order to get a refund.

Victim loses ₹1.23 Lakh in 9 transactions

The caller asked Nayak to install the Rustdusk app on his phone and asked him to provide Rustdusk’s app number, which Nayak provided. Minutes later, Nayak received several messages from his bank alerting him about the many transactions that were being made in his account. He received nine such messages, and when Nayak checked his bank account statement, a total of Rs. 1,232,33 were debited from his account.

Nayak immediately approached the Pant Nagar police about the incident and registered a first information report (FIR) against unknown persons on Saturday afternoon. Police have initiated a probe in the matter.

FPJ Cyber Secure |

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