INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
BENGALURU: A cybercrook allegedly tricked a 43-year-old woman by pretending to be her father's close friend and siphoned off Rs 1 lakh from
her account on the pretext of sending money to her digital payment application.The woman, a resident of Hebbal and teacher by profession,
alleged that when she went to Sadashivnagar police station in less than an hour of losing the money to lodge a complaint and get the account
of the receiver frozen, cops delayed responding, claiming to be busy with the governor and the chief minister's security duty.The staff
present at the station couldn't speak or understand any other language except Kannada, she said.According to the woman, the miscreant
siphoned off Rs 1 lakh between 4.45pm and 5pm Wednesday, by dropping her father's name and she neither clicked on any link, nor received any
A senior city police officer said they have seen a few such cases and this seems to be a new trend in cybercrime.Cybercrime experts said the
text messages are encrypted with a code that allows money theft."I was driving back home from work when I received a call from an unknown
The caller spoke in Hindi and impersonated a chartered accountant who is my father's friend." she told TOI."He told me that my father has
asked him to send some money to my account and asked for my UPI ID
Once I gave him the ID, he sent me a normal message on PhonePe and informed me that the money was sent to my wallet."The woman said that the
man started giving her some instructions to check for the money
"While I was following his instructions, Rs 25,000 was deducted twice from my account and Rs 50,000 once, all without OTPs," she added.The
victim said the man insisted she click on the 'messages' he had sent
"Since I was driving, I told him that I will go home and talk to him and disconnected the call
During the entire conversation, he addressed me as 'beta'," she narrated.Suspecting something fishy, the woman called up her father
"He was furious and told me why would he ask someone to send me money
I called the cyber crime helpline but the staff didn't understand English or Hindi," she said.The woman went to the police station by
5.45pm, only to run into another round of indifference
"If some CM or governor is coming, does that mean they won't attend to the common man," she asked.She insisted that they attend to her
complaint and took her brother's help over phone to explain the cops her problem
"We kept telling them to take steps to freeze the miscreant's account, but they delayed," she added."If police cannot understand English and
Hindi in a cosmopolitan city like Bengaluru, should women in distress then take along translators?" she wondered.The woman said the
miscreant kept calling her even while she was at the police station and added that he called her 22 times the next day
"Beta attend my call, I will send the money that was transferred from your account," read one of his many messages to her.Police called her
Friday and informed her that they are sending an email to the bank to freeze the miscreant's account
Shekhar H Tekkannavar, DCP (central) said he will look into the complaint of apathy against cops.
