A 59-year-old businessman, who stays on Nargis Dutt Road in Pali Hill, tried to order a pizza online but a cyber-fraudster impersonating the pizza shop manager tricked him into transferring Rs 65,000. Soon after the transactions, the businessman received a phone call from his credit card company that was tracking his transactions and he was asked to immediately approach the local police station in order to recover the money. A Khar police official confirmed the registration of an FIR in the matter and said efforts were being made to recover the money.
The incident took place at around 7 pm on July 12 when the businessman searched Google and got the number of Francisco pizza places. The businessman did not know that many fraudsters give their own numbers on Google as a number of popular brands, customer services to dupe unsuspecting customers.
The businessman called up on the number and the fraudster said he will call back from another number. Another fraudster personating as the manager called back and asked him to send an advance payment and sent him a link. The businessman filled in the details on the link and received an OTP. Soon after sharing the OTP, Rs 20,000 got debited from his account. The businessman questioned the fraudster as to how such a big amount got deducted just for a pizza.
But the fraudster apologized and said it happened by mistake and he would return the money and asked for another OTP. The businessman again shared the OTP and again Rs 20,000 got debited from his account. The fraudster somehow convinced the businessman that it was a technical error and made him send the OTP two more times and a total of Rs 65,000 got debited from his account. Soon after the fourth transaction, the credit card company called him and asked him if he was making the payments. When the businessman denied it, the company official asked him to approach the local police to lodge a complaint. The Khar police have lodged an FIR and a probe is on to find the accused.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/bizman-tries-to-order-pizza-online-loses-rs-65000-7407263/
