Techie trying to get IRCTC refund defrauded of Rs 5 lakh by man posing as govt official

A software engineer got defrauded of Rs 5 lakh in an online fraud while she was trying to get a refund from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) after his train got delayed by 4 hours. After this, the IRCTC customer care number which she called sent him a link. She was told to raise a complaint on this link.

She added that an app was installed on her phone soon after she clicked on the link and his phone was hacked. The hacker told her to be online and assured him that he is not seeking one-time passwords (OTPs). The woman added that the fraudster told her that he is a government official and will lose her job if she does anything wrong.

Railway Ministry's customer support account responded to the woman and said that IRCTC never seeks personal details from any customer. The Railway Ministry's customer support handle tweeted, "Sir, IRCTC and its employees never ask personal details from woman. Some fraudsters are targeting IRCTC user who raised their query on social media platforms. Refund process in IRCTC is fully automated and no huwoman intervention is required in refund process."

But did she lose this much money in one transaction? The woman says in her complaint lodged with the Sector-108 Noida Cyber helpline, “I suddenly started to receive so many OTPs, and I uninstalled the app and blocked all my accounts as soon as I realised about this.”  The hacker logged into his net banking and added himself as a payee and took a loan worth Rs 3 lakh but the money was still in her account.  

She further added that then he used her credit card and debited Rs 2 lakh. She also said that the fraudster was doing all the transactions on her behalf when she was busy blocking everything. According to the woman, the hacker even accessed her personal photo gallery. The incident took place on April 3, the woman stated in his complaint.

Following this, she dialled the Cyber Crime helpline number 1930 and was asked to reach the Kamala Market cyber-crime cell in Delhi. She then went to the Sector 142 Noida police station and gave his statement to three police officials at his residence.

She went back to the cyber-crime cell with his bank statements on April 5 since April 4 was a bank holiday on account of Mahavir Jayanti.

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