In a shocking incident, a Bengaluru-based techie lost Rs 68 lakh while attempting to sell an old bed for Rs 15,000 on OLX. A 39-year-old engineer gave his OTP (one-time password) to scammers acting as customers and lost Rs 68 lakh over three days. According to Bengaluru Police, this is the biggest loss resulting from this sort of fraud ever.
According to the Times of India report, Aadish (name changed) recently submitted an ad on OLX looking to sell an old bed. He quoted Rs 15,000 and was immediately approached by a man claiming to be Rohit Sharma. On December 6, Sharma called Aadish and expressed interest in acquiring the bed.
Following the pricing negotiation, Sharma informed Bengaluru-based Aadish that the money would be transferred via a digital payments app. He contacted the techie again a few minutes after to report he was unable to send the money.
The buyer asked the techie to send him Rs 5, for which the latter sent Rs 10. Subsequently, he was asked to send Rs 5,000, for which he received Rs 10,000 in return. Later he was asked to provide Rs 7,500, for which the person said he accidentally sent Rs 30,000. The fraudster then insisted that the techie repay the money via a link and share the OTP. After falling into the OTP trap, the engineer started losing money from his account to the amount of Rs 68 lakh. All the transactions took place between December 6 and 8.
Speaking to TOI, the victim said that Sharma continued asking him to pay money claiming that he couldn’t receive them because of technological difficulties. “I assumed he was a trader with little knowledge of online payments. The following links he shared were in the thousands. When I started losing money through IMPS transfers from my account, I asked him to return it,” Aadish explained.
“Sharma managed to keep me engaged by claiming that he was making every effort to return my money, so I continued to send money to him. Sharma subsequently gave me a new account number, this time in the name of Rajesh Mishra. I sent Rs 15 lakh twice and Rs 30 lakh once, all and all I lost Rs 68.6 lakh” the victim continued.
The police have registered a case based on the victim’s complaint under the Information Technology Act and IPC sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property). Meanwhile, the police said that they have written to the banks to freeze the accounts of the scamsters.
