CHENNAI: Retired private company employee Gothandam’s (name changed) joy knew no bounds when he was told that he could convert his reward points into cash. Little did he know that he was just an OTP away from being conned. On August 13, he had received a call from an unidentified man impersonating as a customer care executive from a private bank. The conman swindled money to the tune of Rs 1 lakh and the T Nagar Cyber crime police have so far recovered Rs 59,000.
Gothandam is a resident of T Nagar. “The fraudster told the victim that he has received a lot of payback reward points from his credit cards that could be converted into cash. He then asked the victim to share his card details and the OTPs.” The victim consecutively shared all details of his ATM cards and the one-time passwords (OTPs) — not once but a whopping 14 times.
“The man said that the amount received is huge so details of different accounts are needed,” said police. After swindling all his money the conman disconnected the call. Realising that he was cheated, Gothandam approached the T Nagar Cyber Crime police and lodged a complaint. Police then contacted the respective banks. “The money transferred from the banks usually goes through different gateways.
Since a few gateways were contacted within 24 hours, the money was withheld and refunded after five days,” said police. Speaking to Express, the victim said, “Instead of transferring money into my account, he had made transactions from my debit and credit cards.
It was a traumatising and from then on, I am scared to attend any unknown calls.” The Cyber Crime cell was formed in each police district in Chennai on September 1. In just 30 days, the T Nagar cell alone had received more than 100 cases, out of which, in 80 per cent cases, people have voluntarily shared their bank details. The residents of T Nagar are asked to contact 6383100100, for cyber crime cases.