Woman cheated twice within 3 days of ₹15lakh in Delhi

A 55-year-old woman in Mayur Vihar lost ₹15 lakh to a scam after a grocery complaint led to her bank details being stolen. Police are investigating.

A 55-year-old woman was cheated twice within three days of at least ₹15 lakh in Mayur Vihar, east Delhi last week, police said on Wednesday. Police said that they registered a case under sections of cheating on Sunday based on the woman’s complaint.

On December 18, the woman, who declined to be identified, ordered groceries on a delivery app, but one of the items was delivered with torn packaging, said police. (Representational image)

On December 18, the woman, who declined to be identified, ordered groceries on a delivery app, but one of the items was delivered with torn packaging, said police.

“I complained on the app but did not get any solution. So I Googled for a customer care number and called it. The man who answered confirmed that he worked with the delivery app. He took my bank account and other private details...” she told HT.

The next day, the woman’s son returned from Mumbai to Delhi and found multiple bank alerts on his mother’s phone suggesting seven or eight failed transactions. “My son called the accused and suspected that something was wrong since the accused did not address the complaint about groceries and kept asking for OTPs and banking details,” she said. The woman and her son went to their bank the same day and found that ₹50,000 had been withdrawn from her bank account. The woman said that a bank official told her to transfer all her funds to two fixed deposits, which she did, said police.

How events unfolded

A day later, the two went to the bank again. “This time, I was shocked to find that more than ₹14 lakh was taken from my FDs. I didn’t receive any alerts as well. It was my son who checked the bank website and found the funds missing. We approached the bank and now we were told by another official that our account should have been frozen or funds should have been transferred to a new account on the previous day. I gave them details of the bank official who suggested otherwise and stole money from us,” the woman told HT.

The woman then approached the police.

A senior police officer in the cyber cell said they received the complaint via the national cybercrime reporting portal (NCRP) and lodged a first information report on Sunday. “We have taken statements from the complainant, the bank manager and other bank officials. We will have to check how many people are involved in the scam and if a bank official stole their money. Investigation has been initiated against the caller whose location is untraceable as of now. It is suspected that the accused discarded the number/SIM after the scam”

Police said that the bank will also verify the allegations and conduct an internal probe since the complainant blamed them for siphoning off lakhs of rupees from her account.