Mumbai: Couple loses Rs 1.33 lakh to tele-fraudsters

The accused then asked Tendulkar his wife’s phone number, saying they would be sending a verification code to that number. (Representational)

An elderly couple, both former government employees, lost Rs 1.33 lakh after a person, claiming to call from their banks, obtained their debit card details and made fraudulent transactions, police said. The incident took place last week. First, Pramod Tendulkar (65) received a call on his mobile phone. The caller said he was calling from his bank and that the debit card linked to his pension account had been blocked. To unblock it, he sought his card details. Tendulkar did so, as well as the OTP. The caller also took details of Tendulkar’s another debit card with the same bank.

The accused then asked Tendulkar his wife’s phone number, saying they would be sending a verification code to that number. His wife Seema had gone to the market. The accused then called up his wife, claiming to be calling from her bank. He told her that her account had been blocked and sought her debit card details. When she returned home around 1.30 pm, she got a message on her phone about transactions totalling Rs 72,000. Her husband then told her about the call he had received. They then checked his account and found Rs 53,000 had been withdrawn.

The couple filed an FIR with the Nehru Nagar police station. An officer said, “We are tracing the number from which the calls were made to track down the accused.” In a similar case filed at the Mankhurd police station on Tuesday, 19-year-old Banita Shahu was duped of Rs 82,000 after a person claiming to call from her father’s bank took debit card details and used it to make fraudulent transactions. No arrests have been made yet.