Chennai: Phishing scams and the awareness among the public about the same have come to the fore again with the death of a 71-year-old woman from Anna Nagar on Sunday who suffered a cardiac arrest, hours after she was cheated by conmen. While it has been said time and again, it is high time that the do’s and don'ts of mobile banking be reiterated again to bank customers, especially those in their sunset years, say police.
According to cybercrime officials, the most vulnerable of the victims are the elderly who become easy prey to the scamsters. In the past one and half years, City’s Denizens have lost over Rs 25 crore to cybercriminals through phishing and other forms of online fraud.
“While the amount lost in the year 2016 alone amounts to Rs 16.12 crore, the amount was only a tad less in 2017,” according to a senior police officer with Central Crime branch.
Advancement in technology has resulted in financial frauds escalating in magnitude and with the lack of policing to match the pace at which these fraudsters operate, the onus lies with the public to be careful.
In the past two years, city police were able to recover only 25 per cent of the amount lost to phishing scams, according to police officers.
City police commissioner A.K. Viswanathan had earlier conducted meetings with representatives from the banks to address the issue. Bank representatives, on their part, have been sending awareness messages to customers about fraudsters. “But, despite all these, public fall for fraudsters and have been sharing OTP (one time password) details and other card details, like the recent incident in Anna Nagar," an officer with State Bank of India said.
Police said that they have advised bank officials to set up awareness camps for their customers in their regions about online fraud. The banks have also been asked to send messages also in regional languages to their customers in case the customer doesn’t understand English, a senior police officer said.
