Ex-RBI Employee Loses Rs.3.5 Lakh in Fake ECI Voter Verification Scam
The 75-year-old retired RBI employee Vishnu Mohan Venna said he received an SMS four days ago asking to share voter ID card through WhatsApp number and informed that the ECI would contact him within 48 hours
Hyderabad: The cyber fraudsters duped a retired RBI employee from Ameerpet to the tune of Rs.3.50 lakh through a fake ECI voter verification link.
In his complaint lodged to the Hyderabad cybercrimes police on Tuesday, the 75-year-old retired RBI employee Vishnu Mohan Venna said he received an SMS four days ago asking to share voter ID card through WhatsApp number and informed that the ECI would contact him within 48 hours.
“At about 5.21 pm, believing the message to be related to voter verification, I sent a photograph of my voter ID card through WhatsApp. Thereafter, I received a call through WhatsApp and the person informed me that my name did not match with my father's name,” he said.
At about 5.31 pm, Mohan received a message asking to download an ECI verification link. Believing it to be a genuine voter verification process, Mohan opened it and filled in the details.
The message sender forwarded an APK file and asked to install it. When asked to pay Rs.5 towards verification charges, Mohan attempted to make payment using internet banking. However, the payment was shown as unsuccessful.
Mohan then received a video call through WhatsApp and the caller informed him that the payments were not happening because of a server failure. He then made another video call stating that Mohan’s face had to be verified. Believing that this was part of the voter verification process, Mohan continued with the call.
At 8.26 pm, Mohan received an SMS from his bank informing that an amount of Rs.3.25 lakh had been detected from his account without his authorization. “I had neither initiated nor authorized the transaction and had not intended to transfer Rs.3.25 lakh to any person,” he said.
At around the same time, an amount of Rs.2 lakh was also transferred without Mohan’s authorization from one of his bank accounts to another account. However, by that time he had reported the matter to bank officials and requested them to block the account, due to which further transactions could not be carried out.
At 8.43 pm, Mohan received a message from the bank regarding deactivation of his debit card. Mohan thereafter reported the incident through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. Based on his complaint, the police booked a case under Sections 66 C, 66D of IT Act, and Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of BNS.