Senior citizen loses Rs 2.20 lakh online after call from man posing as RBI staffer

Neelam Singh got a call from a man claiming himself as RBI staffer and informing him a cash reward of Rs 7,280 he got.

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Nagpur: A senior citizen lost Rs 2.20 lakh in an online fraud allegedly perpetrated by a man falsely claiming to be a Reserve Bank of India staffer, a Nagpur police official said on Saturday. Neelam Singh (62) got a call on his mobile phone on July 21 informing him that he had won a cash reward of Rs 7,280, the official said. After Singh clicked on the link, the accused managed to carry out online transactions worth Rs 2.2 lakh using the former's credit card, the official added. A case of cheating and other offenses under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act has been registered and efforts are on to nab the culprit, he said.

"The called identified himself as an RBI staffer of the non-existent reward distribution division and asked Singh to download a link sent on his mobile phone in order to claim the amount," the MIDC police station official said.

One of the common tools in online money fraud, Phishing lures customers to click on a link in the name of cash or other rewards. Believing the authenticity of the link or becoming greedy, when the victim clicks on the link, the fraudster gets all the personal and sensitive details of the victim. With the help of sensitive information, the fraudster siphons off the money from the victim's account very easily. It is a very prevalent way of online theft in India in which lots of people lose their hard-earned money every year.