Pune: A retired telecom firm official (67) in pursuit of exchanging his debit card lost Rs 18.45 lakh to cybercrooks in Jan.The victim lodged an online complaint. After preliminary investigations, a case was registered with the Sangvi police on Monday.Senior police inspector Jitendra Koli of the Sangvi police told TOI that the complainant, a resident of Sangvi, wanted to change his debit card because of some issues. “The complainant contacted his bank for the same. An employee from the bank gave him a toll free number to complete the process,” Koli said.He said the victim accidentally dialed the wrong number, which was attended by some unknown person. The person on the other end shared another cellphone number with the victim. “When the victim contacted that cellphone number, the attendee assured him of help in obtaining a new debit card,” he said.Koli said the accused took all the details of his bank accounts. He told the victim to share one time password (OTP). “After the victim shared the OTP, the accused assured him that the latter would get the new debit card soon. However, after a few minutes, the victim started getting messages from his bank about the debited amounts from his account,” Koli said.The officer said crooks siphoned Rs 18.45 lakh from the victim’s bank account and duped him. “We have sought the details of these transactions from the victim’s bank. Our investigations are on,” the officer said.
