Bangalore nurse loses Rs 1.5 lakhs to online shopping fraud

A nurse from Yeshwantpur, Bangalore has lost 1.5 lakhs to an online shopping fraud, after she was offered Rs 12 lakhs as prize money in a lucky dip competition. It all happened when a fraudster, claiming to be from Naaptol, informed the nurse that she needs to pay a sum of Rs.1.5 lakhs to avail the prize money.

Badly hit by COVID-19, and looking for money, the nurse decided to pay the requested sum to get the prize money worth Rs.12 lakhs.

Online shopping fraud grips nation

The nurse was a regular user of Naaptol. Initially, she received a mail stating that she has won a cash prize as a part of their lucky dip competition. Thinking that it is a fraud, she did not respond. Later, she even received a call, but she ignored it. However, after some days, the fraudster contacted the nurse’s parents and convinced that their daughter has won Rs.12 lakh.

Later, the nurse got another mail that detailed all the details of the lucky dip competition. It was at this moment that she became convinced and decided to pay the amount to get the prize money.

“They told us that we had to pay Rs.50,000 as tax to get the amount. But we did not have that much amount with us. My parents who had spoken to the fraudsters in the local language were convinced by then and ended up taking hand loans. This went on for over a week, and they kept saying that the money is stuck up in the account, and will be credited soon. But by then, we had already sent Rs 1,57,000, and we demanded refund of our money. They started abusing us. We soon realized that we were duped,” said the nurse, Bangalore Mirror reports.

The nurse also alleged that Naaptol might have a role in this scam, as she was a regular shopper there. She also suspects that the company has shared personal information of customers to others, and it could be how fraudsters got her details.

Beware of credit card skimming

In the meantime, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has warned that fraudsters are using e-commerce platforms for credit card skimming, which will ultimately result in the loss of money for users. The warning report from CERT-In revealed that attackers are typically targeting e-commerce sites due to their wide presence, popularity and the environment LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).

There are also several cases reported in the country where people used to receive phone calls from fraudsters claiming to be bank employees, where they ask OTP from people. Once someone shares the OTP, the entire money from their account will be drained off in seconds.