52-year-old duped of Rs 88k, Dadar police probe credit card fraud

The police have identified the victim as Shashank Raje, a resident of Dadar, who was conned in July this year, but had registered the complaint with the police last week after the concerned bank concluded its inquiry into the matter.

According to the police, Raje was contacted on his cell phone on July 8 by the accused who allegedly threatened Raje that his card would be blocked if he did not share the details.

“Leave aside my name and my home address, the person who claimed to be from my bank, even had my date of birth,” Raje said.

Raje then shared his credit card number after which he received a ‘one time password’ (OTP) from the bank, following which he disclosed digits of the password with the accused. Most of such calls have been traced to states like Punjab, Haryana and Bihar, but the police is yet to identify any caller ,” said Nishikant Patil, senior police inspector with the Dadar police.

“We still do not know how these accused obtained the victim’s personal information,” Patil added.

Investigators believe that the personal information of any citizen, that the accused has sought, is available in the city from various marketing companies who exchange details of their contact list for a hefty fee.

“The victims are asked to switch off their phones and restart it under the pretext of updating the account after they share the OTP. In Raje’s case, even the email address, with which his account was registered, was changed without his knowledge,” said a police inspector with the Dada police.

The police have registered a case against an unknown person for cheating under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

rohit.alok@expressindia.com