Sanjeev Kumar

enquire

Bangalore

Cyber crooks are now using Justdial to con people by raising false queries. The platform takes the contact details of the person who raised a query and connects them to the concerned person.In one such incident, an advocate,SJ lost Rs 10,000 after he contacted a man whose contact details were shared by Justdial. The man claimed that his friend was looking for a marriage registrar. The man even told the advocate that he would send some money as an advance. He sent the advocate requests on an online wallet and siphoned off his money.Sanjeev, 37, a resident of Mathikere has filed a complaint with North CEN crime police station. Sanjeev had signed up with Justdial, where people often called toabout him or ask for suggestions for an advocate. The company would then collect their contact details and send it to him. He said, “On December 19, I received a message from the company stating that a person named Abhishek tried to reach out to me. I contacted the person, who told me that he was looking for an advocate that would help his friend with marriage registration. I told him about the documents required and we discussed the fee as well. He told me that he will send an advance payment of Rs 1,000 for the paperwork and the rest will be paid later. I agreed to it.”The man sent Rs 5 on a online wallet and asked Sanjeev to accept the request. “I received the money and he sent another link while I was still on the call. He kept rushing and asked me to accept the request as the there was a time limit. I didn’t realise and accepted it. I noticed that the request was for Rs 10,000 and not Rs 1,00 as discussed. The man told me that it was a mistake and even lied that the transaction didn’t go through. He sent another link, but the app showed that I had insufficient balance. He kept calling me, but I managed to check my account balance and learned that Rs 10,000 had been debited,” he said. The man immediately disconnected the call and switched of his phone.Luckily, Sanjeev only had Rs 18,000 in his account and the second request for Rs 10,000 didn’t go through. He added that when he found that the amount was debited and questioned the accused, he was told that he could file a police complaint but it wouldn’t affect the man.Mirror tried contacting Justdial for comment, but they couldn’t be reached.A senior officer said that several such cases are being reported on a daily basis. Cyber criminals are misusing most of the online portals and the companies should take some preventive measures, the officer added.