Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai (SR)

Mumbai, Jul 26: Mona Mankar, 45-year-old Wadala resident, lost Rs 1 lac after she contacted customer care of an online shopping portal for refund of a defective saree. Mona was asked by the executive to fill in her personal information on the company's website, after which within seconds Rs 1 lac was deducted from her bank account.

As per Mumbai Mirror report, Mona, who works in a private company, while ordering an ethnic saree from an online shopping portal, selected the payment mode as cash on delivery. A week later, she received the consignment at her house and made the payment. Mona was shocked after opening the packet as it turned out to be defective. Mona then sent a message to the company, complaining about the defects and seeking a replacement or refund.

However, she did not get any reply for the next two days. She then searched the portal’s customer care number and approached them. The police said, the customer care executive, who, in fact, was a fraudster, told the victim that the refund would be sent through a reputed e-commerce payment system and digital wallet according to their policy and asked her to open the account if she does not have one. The customer care executive also sent a link and asked her to fill certain information along with the details of the e-wallet account linked to her bank account. Mona said, “Thinking that it was a genuine process to get the refund, I kept following the caller’s instructions. As soon as the process was completed, she immediately started receiving bank alerts regarding debits from her account.

The investigating police officer said, "There were four transactions of Rs 25,000 each. As she came to know that she had been duped, she approached her bank, got the account blocked and lodged a complaint with us as well. The number which she got from the internet was not genuine and it was a fraudster who posed as a customer care executive. The woman neither got the new saree nor the refund. Instead, she lost Rs 1 lac.”