Mumbai woman loses Rs 7 lakh in unpaid electricity bill SMS scam

A senior citizen in Mumbai loses almost Rs 7 lakh in a new cyber fraud case

The SMS that came on her husband’s phone also had a contact number for proceeding with the payment. The message stated that failure to clear the dues would lead to a disconnection of the electricity connection at the woman’s house. Thus the woman proceeded to call the attached contact number. The phone was picked up by an unknown personnel who identified himself as an employee of Adani Electricity. 

The person directed the victim to install the Team Viewer Quick Support app on her smartphone. The victim then shared the details of the remote control software with the person which included the ID and passcode. This gave access to the lady’s smartphone to the person. Right after, the victim received three SMS transactions worth Rs 4,62,959, Rs 1,39,900, and Rs 89,000. The SBI Fraud Management team then got in contact with the victim to verify the transactions. The lady then denied having initiated such transactions and the scam came to light. 

The FIR based on the cyber fraud episode was then lodged with the Andheri Police Station. A case has been registered against the scammer citing sections 420, 66(C), and 66(D) of the IPC. This is not an isolated event and has been noticed that cybercrime incidents have gone up in the recent past. Another Mumbaiker fell victim to a credit card fraud and lost Rs 7 lakhs in the process. The Government of India has also identified EV charging infrastructure to be a potential bed for cyber scams in the future and is working towards strengthening the system.