A 42-year-old man from Borivali who wanted to get the password of his wife’s Provident Fund (PF) profile’s password reset had fallen prey to a cyber-fraud and had lost money. The victim had visited the PF’s website and tried contacting the helpdesk number mentioned in the site.
Surprisingly, the victim later received a phone call from a fraudster, who in order to help the victim, sent him a phishing link and siphoned money from his bank account.
According to the MHB Colony police, the complainant had recently visited the PF website in order to reset the password of his wife’s PF profile. He had put the Universal Account Number (UAN) number and tried to reset the password, but was not successful.
He then came across a helpdesk number on the website and made calls on the said number, but was unable to establish any contact or communication on the said number.
Surprisingly, two hours later, the victim received a phone call from an unknown mobile number and asked if the victim had called at the helpdesk number and asked what issues the victim was facing.
The victim then informed the caller that he wanted to reset the password after which the caller offered to help and sent the victim a link and asked him to make a payment of Rs 10 as assistance charges, police said.
As soon as the victim clicked the link and made the payment, he realised that Rs 1.16 lakh got debited from his account. Having realised that he had been duped, the victim approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Sunday.
The police have registered a case on charges of Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property and cheating by personation by using computer resource. The police are making efforts to trace the culprit involved.
