Industrialist’s wife loses Rs 2.5 lakh to cyber fraud

Ludhiana, August 24

Wife of a furnace company director has been duped of Rs 2.5 lakh by a cyber criminal. The con man hacked her mobile phone and withdrew the amount from her Paytm account in four transactions.

Navita Garg, wife of Toshik Garg, director of the furnace company, said last afternoon, she got a call from an unknown number. The caller introduced himself as an employee of Paytm and started talking about cash back offers.

The moment she gave details of her Paytm account to the caller, Rs 2.5 lakh was withdrawn by the criminal within a few minutes. She said the cyber criminal first withdrew of Rs 20,000, then carried out two transactions of Rs 40,000 each and finally withdrew Rs 1.5 lakh from her account. When she came to know about the fraudulent withdrawals, she tried to shut the Paytm account, but she couldn’t as the phone was already hacked by the criminal.

Sources said the police had received more than 250 complaints of cyber fraud and a majority of the cases were lying unsolved. — TNS