Erstwhile Vijaya bank customer falls prey to fraudster claiming to be BOB employee

Team Udayavani, Nov 8, 2020, 2:45 PM IST

Credit: iStock Photo

Bengaluru: In yet another case of cybercrime, a fraudster duped a 52-year-old woman, who held an account with erstwhile Vijaya Bank, while claiming to be an employee of Bank of Baroda.

The victim, M Devika, a resident of Vijayanagar registered a case with West CEN crime police station.

According to the complaint, the fraudster had called Devika on October 27 stating that Bank of Baroda was in process of issuing a new checkbook, passbook and debit card to Vijaya Bank account holders following the banks’ merger.

He later asked Devika to share the One-Time Password (OTP) so that he can raise a request for the items. When Devika expressed doubt over sharing of the OTP, he claimed that it was a normal procedure.

Believing him, Devika shared the OTP and soon received a message saying money has been debited from her account. The caller however told her that the money was being transferred from Vijaya Bank to Bank of Baroda and she had no reason to fear.

The fraudster managed to siphon off around 95,545 in multiple transactions with this modus operandi.

Later however Devika refused to share any further OTPs and threatened to complain to RBI. Despite this, the caller kept calling her till October 29. When she finally called the bank to enquire about the caller she came to know she had fallen prey to an online fraudster.