Khammam: About 17 persons in the district have filed police complaints of loss of money from their bank accounts through online frauds over the past 100 days.
Post-demonetisation, such frauds are on the rise, but the police are unable to do much as the culprits could be located anywhere in the world.
Though banks have been alerting account holders not to share account details, many do not heed to the advice and thus, become online fraud victims.
A teacher from a private school in Khammam got a phone call from a person who introduced himself as a bank official and sought his account details. Even the Aadhaar number and account number were given by the teacher. As a result, about Rs 1 lakh was stolen from his bank and the teacher rushed to the police.
Shaik Rafi, a farmer of Mustikuntla under Chintakani mandal, deposited Rs 1 lakh after he sold his farm produce. About Rs 45,000 cash was drained from his account after a person called him and obtained the OTP (one-time password) from him.
The transactions were done from Mumbai and Delhi. It is found that online criminals close their accounts after withdrawing the cash transferred from gullible account holders.
A bank never asks any account holder an OTP number or other details. P. Sudheer, a bank official, said, “We are sending messages to account holders at regular intervals, suggesting them not to give any information to an anonymous caller.”
