Himachal's cyber fraud graph heads north

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 19

There is no let-up in the cyber fraud cases in the state with increasing incidents of designing fake applications and software, looting people through online trading and ticket booking.

SOCIAL MEDIA GOLD MINE OF INFO

The social media platforms are a gold mine of information for scammers as the email IDs and phone numbers used in these sites are also linked to the bank accounts of consumers. Narvir Singh Rathore, ASP, Cyber crime

Once such incident, Kuldeep, Army ex-serviceman and former SBI employee, was duped of Rs 16,000 while booking train tickets. “Recently, I was trying to book two train tickets costing Rs 5,202 and Rs 1,019, but failed to do so due to the server issue. When I was contacting the helpline, I received a call from a mobile number, with a person claiming to be from the IXIGO-IRCTC office in Gurugram,” Kuldeep said.

“The caller asked me to open the app quick support. I followed the instructions and revealed the number mentioned in the app. The caller asked me for the account number, so that the ticket amount could be credited, saying that the money would be refunded in two hours. But later, my Internet banking was locked and when I checked the ATM for balance, Rs 16,000 had been taken out from my account,” he added.

Another victim Praveen said: “A woman from abroad contacted me and lured me into online trading. I invested Rs 10 lakh but the later found that the fraudster had designed a fake software to dupe people.”

As per the information, over 8,000 complaints have been received in various police stations across the state. Of these, as many as 5,181 complaints – 2,015 related to financial fraud, 1,663 social networking, 172 of lost or stolen mobile phones and 1,331 others — were received in the Cyber police station in Shimla alone from January 1 to December 10, 2021.

Meanwhile, ASP, Cyber Crime, Narvir Singh Rathore said: “A large number of fake websites and applications, e-commerce platforms, social media accounts and emails have been created. Cyber criminals are now using software and applications like Team Viewer and Any Desk app to access mobile phones of people to transfer funds from their accounts.”

“Maximum complaints received are related to financial frauds,” he added.