The city cyber cell on Tuesday retrieved the money that a woman lost as a result of an online fraud, thanks to quick reporting of the crime and immediate action on the part of the officials.
According to District Police Chief (Thiruvananthapuram city) Balram Kumar Upadhyay, the woman who is staying in Poojappura police station limits had got a call from someone claiming to be an officer from the State Bank of India (SBI).
Though the woman was initially not convinced about the caller due to the recent instances of online fraud, the caller, who claimed to be making the call for activation of a newly applied credit card, read out certain digits of her account number and other details to convince her.
The woman then passed on the card number and other information sought by the caller.
She realised that it was a case of online fraud only when she got a message that an amount of ₹70,700 has been deducted from her account.
Since she contacted the Cyber cell immediately, the officials there were able to contact the various wallet services used for debiting the amount to retrieve it and get the bank to block the card to prevent further transactions. An amount of ₹70,000 was retrieved.
Contact for complaints
According to Mr. Upadhyay, usually the complaints in such cases are registered only much later, making it hard for the police to take steps to recover the money. Public could contact the city cyber cell (9497975998) for similar cases of online fraud through ATM cards or bank accounts.
