Hyderabad, April 02: After using e-mails and text messages through mobile phones, tricksters are now directly calling up unsuspecting persons to relieve them of their money with new baits.
A Provident Fund office employee was tricked to part with Rs. 16,000 in this manner two days ago at Allwyn Colony in Kukatpally. The amount lost is less compared to Nigerian frauds reported earlier but this should be a wake-up call for people entertaining unsolicited calls offering cash prizes or offers without any justification, caution the police.
Ingenious method
The employee in his mid-40s received a call on his mobile phone from the number 99561 20028. Identifying himself as a representative of Airtel company, the caller congratulated him for winning Rs. 25,000 in cash for being the oldest customer of the company.
“An additional gift from our company is that you can speak to any one Airtel mobile number free of cost for one year period,” the caller informed him. The receiver naturally was gladdened at the unexpected cash prize and free talk offer but was sceptical.
To clear any doubts, the caller asked him to go to the nearest shop selling mobile phone re-charge coupons so that he could help him secure the cash prize immediately. The unsuspecting employee rushed to a shop in the locality.
Known customer
“The trickster again called up and asked the employee to hand over the phone to the shop owner. The caller directed the employee to introduce him to the shop owner as his own brother,” the Cyber Crime wing police of Cyberabad said. As the employee was a known customer, the shop owner readily agreed to attend the call.
The conversation went on for 20 minutes and the employee believed the caller was telling him how to process the free talk offer.
“To my shock, the shop owner told me that ‘my brother got re-charged 10 mobile phones with Rs. 16,107 worth coupons,” the victim told the police stating that he had no option but to cough up the money.
Police later traced the caller’s number and other re-charged mobile phone numbers to New Delhi. Addresses of most of the numbers turned out to be fictitious. More than the money lost, the new trend of cheating using noted company’s names, cash prizes and free talk offers to lure the victims must be noted, the police said.
–Agencies