What appeared to be a transfer of money to a relative with the genuine intention to help turned out into a cyber fraud for a 65-year-old victim, who lost Rs 2 lakh. The victim had received a WhatsApp message purportedly from his daughter-in-law’s father, asking for Rs 2 lakh and promising to return the money in two days. It turned out that the message was from a scamster.
“This was the first time they had asked me for money in years. That too with their contact number, display picture, everything in place. Initially, we knew that we could get messages from unknown numbers claiming to be family.
But we get messages from a known number. How is it possible for one to differentiate,” the victim asked. A day later, when the victim met his relative and asked for the reason behind the request for money.
The relative replied that he had never asked for money and that his WhatsApp had been hacked. “I had saved the amount after my retirement and my son’s marriage. It was heartbreaking when I lost it in just a couple of minutes,” the victim said.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, director of TG Cyber Security Bureau, Shikha Goel said, “Be it any scam, one of the tricks that works 99 per cent of the time is to disconnect and call back. If a scamster calls you, try to stay composed and disconnect the call and then call them back. Ninetynine per cent of the time, the call won’t go through, as the scamster does not call you the way people normally make calls.
There are just outg.
