A 70-year-old man allegedly lost Rs 4.81 lakh to cyber fraudsters who contacted him under the guise of pension card registration in Pune's Baner area, Maharashtra.
Dilip Eknath Waikar, a resident of Pashan, received a WhatsApp message related to pension card registration between September 8 and 9. The message instructed him to open it and provide his bank account details. He later found that Rs 4.81 lakh had been fraudulently debited from his account.
The incident led to the registration of a case at Baner police station under Sections 318(4) and 318(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 66(D) of the Information Technology Act. Police have not yet identified the accused, and no arrests have been made.
A similar case was reported in September, when a 72-year-old retired bank employee from Makarba allegedly lost Rs 5 lakh after responding to a Facebook advertisement promoting a pension card. He approached the Sarkhej police after discovering an unauthorised transaction in his account.
According to the complaint, the retired banker saw the advertisement on Facebook on September 6. It claimed to offer a pension card purportedly issued by a bank. Believing the offer was genuine, he submitted an application through the link provided.
On September 7, he received a call from an unidentified mobile number. The caller allegedly told him that his pension card application had been approved and sought his name, address and other personal information to complete the registration.
The complainant told police that he shared the requested details, including his bank account information. He later received an email notification about an online transaction of Rs 5 lakh from his account.
After realising that he had not authorised the transaction, the retired banker suspected that he had been cheated and immediately called the cybercrime helpline at 1930. On checking his account, he found that the amount had been transferred online to an account maintained with Punjab National Bank.