A 38-year-old South Mumbai based Lawyer lost over ₹19 lakh to KYC fraud recently, the fraudster posing as bank officials made the advocate to share One Time Passwords (OTP) & changed the password of his net banking & transferred the money.

On Saturday when the Advocate was at his home in Colaba, he received a text message from an unknown number informing him his card had been blocked as his Know Your Customer (KYC) details have not been updated. A contact number was also given in the message for assistance.

In the message itself, there was purported notification link of Reserve Bank India (RBI) was provided which, as a reason the complaint didn't suspect anything foul, the complainant said in his police statement.

When called the fraudster posing as a bank official demanded customer ID of his account, however, the victim informed that he does not have passbook at that moment. The fraudster then asked him was there any other account linked with his mobile number & demanded the customer ID of that account & alleged that the other account/bank act as a guarantor.

After sharing his customer ID the lawyer received 2 OTPs on the phone & one on email which he shared with the fraudster. Soon the complaint received a text message that his net banking password had been changed, suspecting something was wrong he immediately contacted the customer care number asking to freeze his account. Unfortunately at that time, the bank's system maintenance work was underway & he was informed that it would take a few hours.

Few hours later he was informed that his account had been frozen however by that time the fraudster had already transferred ₹19.19 lakh from his account. On the advocate's complaint the Colaba police have registered an offence of impersonation & cheating along with relevant sections of the Information Technology act.

Time & again, it has been seen that cyber fraud took place due to victim's mistakes only. Before calling customer care people should recheck the numbers & never share their details on phone, as well as OTPs, said a police officer.

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