Hyderabad: Fraudsters, posing as bank representatives, are duping pensioners with fake advertisements of pension cards on Facebook and YouTube. In the last two weeks, four retired employees, including two former bankers, approached Hyderabad police reporting a collective loss of over Rs 28 lakh and individual losses of lakhs of rupees.A 66-year-old retired govt employee from Kachiguda lodged a complaint on July 24 alleging that he clicked on a Facebook post titled ‘Retired Pension Card- Union Bank of India’, which was claimed to be meant for pensioners. “Believing that the post was genuinely from the bank, I clicked the apply now link on July 22,” the victim told police.The next day, he received a call from a person posing as a bank executive, who made the victim install a file sent via an SMS link, claiming that it was the bank’s application. The victim was made to enter his personal bank account, Aadhaar, debit card, internet banking, MPIN and also OTPs. “By remotely accessing the fraudulent app, the accused siphoned off Rs 9.8 lakh in three transactions from my bank account,” the victim alleged.In a similar complaint, a 66-year-old retired bank employee from KPHB Colony, who had clicked on a retired employees’ pensioner benefit card scheme, reported a loss of Rs 4.15 lakh to the police on July 24 after he fell prey to the tricks of a fraudster who posed as an employee of Punjab National Bank.In two other complaints, a 78-year-old retired bank employee from Asmangarh in Malakpet on July 18 stated that he lost Rs 7.5 lakh by clicking on a Facebook post of Union Bank of India Senior Citizens Pension Card, and a 68-year-old retired private worker from Habsiguda approached police on July 19 stating that he lost Rs 6.6 lakh after clicking on a Facebook advertisement of Pension Card offering various benefits. Both of them were contacted by fraudsters posing as Union Bank of India’s representatives.On the complaints of the victims, Hyderabad Cyber Crime police have booked four separate cases under relevant sections of BNS and the IT Act. “We have written to the concerned social media organisations and the fraudulent links were taken down. We are trying to identify the accused based on the bank transactions and phone numbers,” said a cyber crime official.
