KOCHI : A migrant worker from West Bengal who applied for a refund of his flight ticket ended up losing Rs 70,000 of his hard-earned money, in the latest case of phishing attack in the state.
The Ernakulam Rural cyber police have launched an investigation based on the complaint of Samsul Islam, a native of Murshidabad who works in a factory at Pattimattom in Kochi, As per the police, Samsul, looking to visit his native place, booked a flight ticket from Kochi to Kolkata around four months ago. However, he had to drop the plan due to personal reasons.
“He went to the website where he had booked the ticket, cancelled it and applied for a refund online,” a police officer said. It later emerged that he had visited a fake website which looked similar to the one through which he had booked his tickets.
A few days later, Samsul received a call. “The person on the other end claimed to be a representative of an agency handling air ticketing and cancellation procedures. The caller promised to help Samsul receive the refund amount soon,” said the officer.
Samsul was informed that he would receive the link to an app on his mobile phone and was asked to download the same. He was told that the app will provide with him updates about the status of his refund.
“Samsul complied and downloaded the app. In reality, it was a phishing app that could access the contents of his mobile phone, including sensitive information like bank details,” the officer said. Within 24 hours of downloading the app, a sum of Rs 70,000 was debited from Samsul’s account with the SBI’s Jalangi Branch in West Bengal. Samsul had no clue that he had lost the money.
“The victim realised that he lost money only recently, following which he decided to approach the police here. We have registered a cheating case and are collecting details of the account to which the money was transferred from Samsul’s account,” said an officer.
Complaint delay poses challenges
The police are facing several limitations in the probe mainly due to the delay by Samsul, the victim, in filing the complaint. They said the fact that Samsul’s bank account, from which the money was debited, is in West Bengal is another issue.
“Tracing the money would be difficult as four months have passed since the incident. The fraudsters keep changing bank accounts to prevent the police from tracing them. We will try our best to help the complainant,” said an officer.