Bengaluru: A 33-year-old private firm employee fell prey to a fake traffic violation challan fraud recently and lost Rs 1.7 lakh. However, he acted swiftly and recovered Rs 80,000 by raising complaints.
According to the complaint filed by Arpit Haldar, a resident of Horamavu, he received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number around 2pm on Feb 22. “Dear customer, there is a traffic violation on Kammanahalli Main Road from your two-wheeler, and to check the violation, click on the link,” it read.
The link accompanying the message looked like it was from Parivahan portal. Unaware it was a replica, Haldar clicked on the link, which was an APK file. He didn’t find any violation receipt. Suspecting something amiss, he immediately deleted the link, cleared the cache, and restarted his mobile phone.
Speaking to TOI, Haldar said he uses his two-wheeler in Bengaluru while his four-wheeler is in his hometown of Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
As the message didn’t specify any vehicle registration details, he called his family to check if they had used the four-wheeler. “I called my family to cross-check… they informed me they hadn’t used the vehicle.”
“I was aware of APK file fraud, but since I got the message specifying the violation was on Kammanahalli Main Road and my office is located in Kalyan Nagar, I took a chance and clicked on the link. I used to get traffic violation alerts by SMS. For the first time, I got a WhatsApp message, so I thought the traffic police had upgraded,” he said.
Around 1am, Haldar started receiving multiple phone calls. He initially disconnected them. But as the calls continued, he thought his family might be in some emergency and attended it. Thereafter, his message inbox was flooded with OTPs. According to Haldar, he received around 40 OTPs. They were about transactions made through his e-commerce portals (Flipkart and Amazon) and a few from his two credit cards. “I was actually frozen as it was happening at midnight. The fraudsters booked four hotel rooms in Delhi, used my money to recharge four Delhi Metro cards, recharged FASTags, did some online shopping, and bought gift cards,” Haldar said.
He immediately called the customer care of the e-commerce firms and blocked the transactions by explaining the fraud. He even called the banks and alerted them. He got money back from the two e-commerce accounts as he managed to raise an alert before the orders were dispatched.
Banaswadi police have registered a case under the Information Technology Act.