Woman Duped Of Rs 75,000 After Sharing OTP With Telecaller

Ranjani Menon, 37, a homemaker, lost Rs 75,000 after a fake telecaller asked her to make a payment of Rs10 and asked her for OTP.

How did she lose the money?

The telecaller, who introduced herself as Priya Sharma, asked Ranjani to share her OTP with her and fleeced her off Rs 75,000. Priya Sharma called her for on the pretext of giving Ranjani a job. She said that her bio-data, that was she uploaded on a website, was selected and Ranjani had to make a payment of Rs 10 then fill a form.

Menon’s complaint states: “I followed the caller’s instructions as she said my bio-data has been selected. She asked to pay Rs 10 and fill the form online. First I tried to pay Rs 10 through my SBI credit card however but the money did not get deducted. So I used my Canara bank debit card the same thing happened,” as reported by The Times of India.

The caller then told Ranjani to share the OTP to help her. “The fraudster got hold of the victim’s card details after she tried to make the payment on the website,” said an officer from Antop Hill police station.

The transactions

“The caller told my wife to pay a Rs10 processing fee for the same. Her SBI credit card and Canara Bank debit card, which she tried to use to pay, were blocked after the incident,” Ranjani’s husband told The Times of India.

The money got transferred to different e-wallets and was withdrawn within 20 minutes in 10 different transactions.

The Logical Indian Take

We urge people not to share their OTPs with anybody over the phone. These are the common ways of scamming people. Also, please verify the authenticity of the offer when someone is calling you for a job.