Cyber criminals

DL

Regional Transport Office

Google

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continue to target Bengalureans when they’re just going about their life – ordering food online, taking money out of an ATM, answering a call, asking for a refund of a transaction… Here is another incident where a mechanical engineer working in a private firm was duped of nearly one lakh rupees when he was trying to renew his Driver’s Licence () online.The incident took place on November 26, when Rajendran (name changed on request) landed on an online site when he was searching for information on the KR Puram(RTO). He says he found a helpline number ((+91-8144910621) displayed on the site and called it. A person claiming to be an employee of the RTO said he would be available for help and spoke to Rajendran in Hindi.Meanwhile Rajendran was asked to follow the instructions which would help him renew his DL in 10 minutes. Firstly the man on the phone told Rajendran that a One Time Password (OTP) would be sent through SMS and he would have to share it with him so that a weblink could be shared next.After following all the instructions given by the man on the phone, Rajendran thought his DL renewal process was done. But Rajendran never thought that by sharing the OTP and clicking on the link, he had allowed the man to debit money from his bank account throughPay.After 24 hours, on November 27, Rajendran received a series of messages around 1 pm on his mobile which stated that Rs 89, 993 was transferred from his HDFC account to four unknown accounts.Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, Rajendran said, “I was very surprised to see how technology is being misused by fraudsters. Moreover I was cheated while I was on a government (RTO) website. Without asking any details about my bank account, the accused managed to withdraw money from my account. I can’t understand how he got access to my bank account. Many of my friends working in IT told me that the accused would have hacked into my Google Pay account and through this he was able to withdraw money from my bank account.”Rajendran continued, “After filing a complaint at the police station, officials found out that the helpline number is fake and is not operated from Bengaluru. Hope no one falls prey to such crimes. Google should see to it that no one can hack so easily into Google Pay. Privacy and safety of the users should be protected while using online applications for money transactions,” he added.One of the officials from Whitefield police station told Bangalore Mirror, “The case has been transferred to the Cyber Crime department and officials are tracking the accused through the IP address. The accused will be identified soon.”An FIR has been registered at Whitefield police station under the sections of information technology act 2000, 66 (E) and 420 (punishment for cheating).