TIRUNELVELI: Following complaints from parents of school children in Tirunelveli city and rural limits that they were cheated of Rs 5 lakh by cybercriminals who posed as government officials offering scholarships, the city cyber crime police registered a case on Saturday.
The victims said that the suspects had spoken over phone in Tirunelveli dialect of Tamil to convince the parents of their ‘official’ identity. According to sources, the father of a student from Thachanallur received a call on his mobile phone who identified himself as an official of Tirunelveli district collectorate and claimed that he was responsible for distributing scholarships to the school students. He later collected the confidential bank account UPI details from the parents. After some time, the man sent a ‘fake’ message to the parent’s mobile pretending that he had transferred the scholarship amount. Immediately, he called the parent and asked him to share the OTP received on his mobile. The parent realised that he had been cheated once the cybercriminal withdrew Rs 1 lakh from his account, sources added.
The city cyber crime police on Saturday received his complaint, registered a case and began an inquiry. The city and district cyber crime police sources said that nearly 10 parents who lost their money to the scholarship scam had approached them recently.