Madiwala police said they have registered a case and are probing.

BENGALURU: All he wanted was a pizza on a Sunday afternoon. But little did NV Shaik, a techie, know that he’d fall prey to online fraudsters.

Around 3.30pm on December 1, Shaik, a resident of Koramangala 1st Block, opened a food delivery app and ordered a pizza. But when the order didn’t arrive even after an hour he did a Google search for the app’s customer care number and dialled in. Within two hours, Shaik lost Rs 95,000 from his bank account.

Shaik, 33, has now lodged a complaint with Madiwala police seeking action against fraudsters who stripped him of his salary and savings.

“When I called them, they said they weren’t taking pizza orders and would refund the money. They told me that they’d send me a link and I’d have to enter the details for a faster refund,” Shaik said.

Not realising he was speaking to a scamster masquerading as a customer care executive, Shaik did as he was told. Within minutes, Rs 45,000 was deducted from his HDFC account. And even before he could transfer the remaining money to another account (Andhra Bank), another 50,000 was gone.

With the lone cybercrime police station in the city not taking complaints, Shaik approached Madiwala police and filed a case. “Once I opened the link, I was asked for the amount which had to be refunded. It was also asked for my PhonePe user name. I provided both and have no idea how the money was deducted from my account. The so-called representative spoke in Hindi and English,” Shaik told TOI.

Shaik who got his salary on November 29, lost everything within two days. “My mother is unwell and I was saving money for her treatment,” he said. Shaik has details of the account to which his money was routed and has been pleading with police to identify the culprits.

Madiwala police said they have registered a case and are probing. Meanwhile, police sources said they have been getting more and more cases of various malware, including Mazar BOT, being deployed in smartphones through refund-related links sent to users.

Read this story in Bengali

