Bengaluru techie loses Rs 97,000 after threatening call from fraudsters posing as RTO and police officers

A Bengaluru techie, Monika Chouhan, faced the nightmare of online scamming after receiving a threatening call from someone claiming to be an officer from the RTO and the police. The caller said that the 26-year old woman was involved in a hit-and-run accident and that she needed to pay Rs 97,000 to settle the case.

The unidentified caller, impersonating an RTO official and a police officer, demanded Chouhan to remunerate Rs 97,000 as a settlement for the hit-and-run incident. In the phone conversation on August 26, the anonymous caller ensured an alarming tone, invoking fear and insecurity on the other end of the line.

Monika was scared and she agreed to pay the money. She was then asked to transfer the money to a bank account. Monika did as she was told and she lost Rs 97,000.

It started when she received an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) that asked her that a traffic violation challan had been issued on her name by the court. The voice message directed her to press 1 to know more details about the case and then get in touch with the RTO.

Her call was subsequently forwarded to someone claiming to be an officer from Mumbai's Regional Transport Office (RTO) in Andheri. The fake RTO officer notified Monika about a hit-and-run accident involving her vehicle.

He informed her that she would be needed to appear in a Mumbai court for the proceedings. Monika, who was stressed and surprised by the false accusation, attempted to clarify that she lived in Bengaluru, did not own a vehicle, and had not recently visited Mumbai.

The caller then responded by saying that he was transfering the call to the Mumbai Police for verification. He then took the deceit to the next level by requesting her to log into Skype for a recorded statement. He also provided her with an official-looking ID card to add to the illusion.

Monika was then forced to share her Aadhaar card information. The scammer further said that her bank accounts were used to fund illegal terrorist funding operations.

In this case, the scammers somehow managed to convince Monika to transfer Rs 48,325 from one of her accounts by pretending to be from the finance department of the Mumbai Police. They then called her back and demanded that she transfer the same amount from another account. Monika was hesitant, but she agreed out of fear of legal consequences.

Later, Monika realised that she had been scammed. She filed a complaint with the police under the Information Technology Act, but the scammers are still at large.

Online scamming and fraudulent calls remain a persisting issue in our increasingly digital age, and this incident in Bengaluru is a testament to the sophistication of such scams. 

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