Mumbai: Even as the Central government’s move to link Aadhaar card to bank accounts, SIM cards is being discussed, scamsters have started taking advantage of it.

One such case was registered in Goregaon on Wednesday. A senior citizen was tricked into revealing his debit card details, by a conman posing as a representative from his bank and saying he needed the details to link his account to his Aadhaar card.

According to the Goregaon police, the complainant, Sudhir Mestha (71), is a resident of Siddharth Nagar. “Mr. Mestha received a call on his cell phone at around 11:50 a.m., and the caller identified himself as a representative of a nationalised bank, where Mr. Mestha has a savings account. After asking questions to establish that he indeed had an account in the bank and that he used a debit card, the caller informed Mr. Mestha that his bank account needed to be linked to his Aadhaar number,” said an officer with the Goregaon police.

Mr. Mestha gave all the details, including his debit card PIN number, and the caller hung up saying that the needful will be done soon.

Three hours later, Mr. Mestha received a notification from his bank on his cell phone that ₹49,997 had been debited from his account towards some purchases made online.

Mr. Mestha made inquiries with his bank and found that the purchases had been made using his debit card PIN. He blocked his card and approached the police.

“We have written to the bank seeking details of the purchases made, so that we can find out details like the portal through which the purchases were made and the location of the person who made them,” said senior Inspector Dhanaji Nalawade, Goregaon police station.

The police have registered an offence of cheating and impersonation under the Indian Penal Code against unknown persons.