BENGALURU: Book a bluetooth headphone worth Rs. 1,564 on an e-commerce site and lose Rs 5.47 lakh in the process to cancel the order. The story sounds hard to believe but this is what happened to Venkatesha N Palanakar (37), an Ashoknagar resident, who contacted the customer care number, and coughed up lakhs of rupees to online fraudsters. Palanakar placed an order a bluetooth headphone worth Rs. 1,564 through an e-commerce portal, but later changed his mind and cancelled the order, he said in a complaint filed with the Cyber Crime police.
“To get the money refunded, I contacted a number from the website thinking that it was the customer care number. They advised me to download a support application and I did so. Then they gave some details and asked me to fill it up in an online wallet application. Once I did it, money from two of my bank accounts started getting debited. In multiple transactions, a total of Rs 5,57,771 was debited from the two accounts,” he said in the complaint.
Palanakar only approached the cyber crime police after the amounts were deducted from his account over 10 days. Police have registered a case of cheating by personation and under provisions of the Information Technology Act.
“He got the phone number from a browser. People shopping online must contact only numbers mentioned on official websites. Otherwise, they will be at risk of falling prey to cyber criminals,” a police officer said.