police officer

Neeraj

Bengaluru

cop

Bangalore

Cyber crooks come in all shapes and forms; this one came dressed as aon WhatsApp. And he used the most common method of con these days — a QR code — to steal Rs 18,994 from, a techie working in ITPL.Neeraj, a resident of Hoodi in Bengaluru, was moving to a new flat within the same apartment complex and wanted to dispose of his queen-sized bed and a study unit. He posted an ad on OLX that he wanted to sell the three items for `12,000. A man who identified himself as Deepak Kumar (in pic) pinged him on OLX saying he was interested in buying the furniture as he had recently been transferred tofrom up north. He claimed that he was the station house officer (SHO) of Indiranagar police station. He asked Neeraj to mark the furniture as ‘sold’ as he was interested in it. Neeraj toldhim that he would do so only on receiving the money.On Sunday morning, Kumar called Neeraj and said that he was sending the money and that his boys would come to pick up the furniture. Kumar then sent Neeraj a QR code for Rs 12,000 to his Google Pay account. When Neeraj refused to scan it, Kumar told him he was a police officer and he would not play the fool.Neeraj had checked Kumar’s Whatsapp profile to find a man donning a police uniform with two stars. Neeraj had also checked Kumar’s number on Truecaller, which stated that he was the Indiranagar SHO. Believing that he indeed was a, Neeraj scanned the code and keyed in his PIN. But instead of receiving the money, Rs 12,000 went from his account.Kumar, who was on call with Neeraj (it’s a standard technique to distract you; be careful), said it was a mistake. He apologised and said that he would refund the money. Kumar then sent another QR code for Rs 6,999 which had a comment — ‘refund to pay successfully’ — and asked Neeraj to scan it again. This time, Neeraj lost Rs 6,999.“He sent me a QR code for Rs 5 to check if the credit was happening. I got Rs 5,” Neeraj toldMirror. Kumar started blaming Neeraj for the “wrong transaction”. When Neeraj demanded that Kumar return his money, the latter asked for another bank account number.Neeraj knew he had been had. When he said he was going to file a complaint, Kumar abused him and said that he knew his address and would get him picked up.Realizing that his money was gone, Neeraj approached the Mahadevapura police station and filed a complaint.