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Aged woman dies after phishing caller wipes off Rs 90,000 from her bank account
A septuagenarian woman, who was tricked into sharing her bank account details and even the one-time passwords by a fraudster posing as bank official, died on Sunday after learning that her bank account was emptied by the conman.
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
While such phishing attacks are on the rise, this case revealed the risks faced by those unaware of the scams, especially the elderly, and the price they have to pay for it.
According to police, Jayalakshmi Rajendran from Anna Nagar, the 71-year-old wife of a retired treasury official, received a phone call at around 3 pm on Friday. The caller claimed he was from the State Bank of India, and informed her that her debit card was nearing expiry. Even after Jayalakshmi told him that her account was with the Indian Bank, the caller managed to convince her into sharing her account details including card number and Aadhaar card number over the phone.
The glib talker told her that the bank computer system would send one-time passwords (OTP), and asked her to share it. The unsuspecting elderly woman passed on as many as five OTPs to the caller, one of the family members told DTNext on Monday.
Soon after she hung up the phone, Jayalakshmi started receiving SMSes on her mobile phone about purchases worth over Rs 90,000 made using her debit card. Shocked to see the messages, she rushed to the bank to learn that she had been duped by scamsters. She then lodged a complaint with the Thirumangalam police station and returned home.
It, however, did not stop there. On Saturday morning she received a call again seeking her card details. Upset over the turn of events that wiped off her savings, Jayalakshmi shouted at the caller, who quickly cut the call.
Her relatives, who gathered at her home after learning about the incident, said Jayalakshmi developed a chest pain, presumably due to the incident. She was rushed to a private hospital where she died on Sunday. Police added that the woman had aged-related health issues.
Jayalakshmi stayed in the city with her husband Rajendran, while their two sons stayed elsewhere. One of her sons is a tahsildar, now posted at Valparai in Coimbatore.
Tackling phishing calls:
- As the banks repeatedly warn, never share bank account, debit and credit card details over phone. Banks don’t call you up asking for such detail.
- Never share the OTP generated by banks for electronic transactions. Except you, nobody should know the password.
- Callers usually target vulnerable group - aged persons or housewives or people not sure about banking operations and card transactions.
- The phishing callers may sound very convincing about the need for you to share the details. Remember they are con artists trained for that. Once you let the caller know such details, they will use it for completing transactions, mainly for online purchase.
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