Vinod M Jain
A 50-year-old resident of Horamavu in Bengaluru was allegedly cheated of nearly Rs.1 lakh by fraudsters posing as bank officials through a fake eKYC verification process conducted over WhatsApp.
According to the complaint filed by victim,a resident of Brindavan Layout,Horamavu,he received a WhatsApp call on Tuesday from a person identifying himself as “Ravi Kumar Mishra,”claiming to be a Relationship Officer from his bank (Axis Bank).
The caller reportedly used a WhatsApp account displaying the (Axis)Bank logo and insisted that the victim complete an urgent eKYC verification process to prevent his bank account from being blocked.
The fraudster allegedly pressured the victim to share his mobile screen and follow multiple instructions simultaneously,including profile modifications and OTP-based verifications.
The complainant stated that he was also asked to download a face-recognition application as part of the process.
Though he refused to install an APK file shared by the caller,the fraudsters are suspected to have accessed sensitive banking information and OTPs during the screen-sharing session.
Senior officer said the accused allegedly broke the victim’s fixed deposit of around Rs.20,000 and recurring deposit of approximately Rs.60,000,transferring the funds into his savings account before siphoning off the money through unauthorized transactions.
An amount of Rs.50,000 and another transaction of Rs.49,995 were reportedly transferred to two unknown bank accounts without the victim’s consent.
A case has been registered,and East division cybercrime police are investigating the incident.Officials have once again advised the public not to share mobile screens, OTPs,or banking details with unknown callers,even if they appear to represent legitimate financial institutions.
