Gulbarga, September 19: The desire to get a 2.5 lakh pound prize resulted in a loss of Rs17.5 lakh for an engineering graduate in Gulbarga City.
Gulbarga SP Padmanayan told Express here on Saturday that Sumay, daughter of Mustak Ahmed, who is an engineering graduate, received an SMS about a month back on her cell claiming that her mobile has won a prize of 2.5 lakh pounds and she was advised to contact the organisers of the lottery on e-mail.
When she contacted the organisers they advised her send some amount of processing charges to receive the prize money.
They went on demanding the processing charges and she gave Rs17 lakh. She smelt foul play and sent an e-mail to the organisers asking them to send back the money she has sent so far. The organisers in their reply asked her to send another Rs50,000 towards cancellation of prize and after receipt of the money they would send back Rs17 lakh, which she has remitted as processing charges.
But there was no reply. Repeated reminders by her on e-mail did not yield any result.
Sumay contacted Gulbarga SP Padmanayan along with her father on Saturday and filed a complaint in this regard.
As per the instructions, the Station Bazar police have registered a case. One account of the organisers, which was at ICICI Bank Delhi branch, has been fozen as per the request of Gulbarga SP.
Sumay has been advised to approach to court for getting her money. Police are investigating whether there are any other accounts of the organisers in other banks.
This is the second such incident in Gulbarga city. A few months back, a lawyer fell prey to a similar SMS and lost some money towards processing charges and later filed a complaint at Bramhapura police station.
Padmanayan has requested the people not to fall pray to such an SMS which lures the people by telling that their mobile phones have won prizes.
–Agencies