87-year-old Mumbai resident loses Rs 16.14 lakh to fraudsters

An attempt to contact the civic body for pest control services turned out to be a costly ordeal for an 87-year-old retired municipal doctor from the Khar area of Mumbai, who lost Rs 16.14 lakh to fraudsters. The incident came to light recently.

The complainant, Dr Shalu Bhutani, had retired from the municipal corporation in 1997. On December 20, Dr Bhutani looked for the contact number of the H-West Ward (Bandra, and parts of Khar and Santacruz) of the municipal corporation on Google and requested for mosquito pest control in her society, believing that she had contacted the civic body.  

“A retired doctor contacted on the contact number given on Google. A woman answered and identified herself as a municipal corporation employee. She then claimed that a registration fee of Rs 50 was required to avail the pest control service. However, Dr Bhutani told the woman that this service is free at night. To this, the woman on the call replied that the service was free earlier but is now chargeable. The fraudster also insisted that the payment was now mandatory. The woman posing as the civic employee then transferred the doctor`s call to another individual, who confirmed on the payment,” said a Mumbai Police officer.  

As Dr Bhutani did not have the facility of online banking, she informed the woman on the call about it. However, while still on the call, the doctor received a message notifying her of a withdrawal of Rs 2.85 lakh from her account. Alarmed, she confronted the individual on the call, who reassured her that Rs 1 lakh had been refunded and requested her not to disconnect the call. He also claimed that he could not transfer more than 1 lakh rupees per day and asked her to call again the next day. 

Worried and confused, Dr Bhutani visited three bank branches where she held accounts to verify the balance amount in her accounts. Initially, the bank staff found no unauthorised withdrawals. Despite that, the complainant requested them to block the online transactions. However, at the time, she forgot that she had to block her account in Punjab National Bank (PNB) too. When she visited the branch on March 2, Dr Bhutani realised that Rs 13.35 lakh had been withdrawn from her PNB account.  

“Realising she had been duped, Dr Bhutani lodged a complaint at the Cyber Police Station (Western Division). We have registered a case under Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act, along with Sections 204, 205, 318(4), 319(2), 336(2), 336(3), 340(2), and 61 of the BNS (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita). An investigation has been launched to trace the fraudsters and recover the lost funds,” the police officer informed.