India News | Man Duped of Rs 17.5 Lakh by Fake Customer Care Representatives

Gurugram, July 11 (PTI) A man was duped of Rs 17.50 lakh by unknown fraudsters who pretended to be customer care representatives of a prominent mobile network, police said here on Tuesday.

Sandeep Kumar Jha, a resident of Uppal Southend, Sector 49 in Gurugram, was looking to speak to a customer service representative to find solution for an issue with the Airtel payments bank app but ended up giving remote access to the fraudsters.

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According to the police complaint, Jha was looking for a customer care number to resolve his issue. A person who introduced himself as an Airtel customer care representative named "Manish" offered to help with the issue. He spoke with Jha a few times on the phone and claimed to help get him a refund from the telecom company.

"It was on June 4, the person asked me to download an android app named 'Anydesk' on my mobile phone. Subsequently, I also received WhatsApp messages from some mobile numbers to install another app called 'Customer-Support' on my mobile phone on the same date," Jha said in his complaint.

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"I suspect they got remote access to my phone through these apps and withdrew a total of Rs 17,50,000 fraudulently from my bank account," he added.

An FIR was registered based on the complaint under Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating) of the IPC and Section 66D of IT Act (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) on Tuesday. Efforts are going on to nab the accused, police said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)