UP forest official becomes victim of phishing

Lucknow, Nov 7 (SocialNews.XYZ) A senior forest official in Uttar Pradesh has become a victim of cyber fraud after he was duped on the pretext of updating electricity bills.

Chief Forest Conservator Deepak Kumar was conned of Rs 1.23 lakhs when he received a message saying that he had not deposited his electricity bills and the connection would be snapped soon.

The message also mentioned that he should contact the electricity officer on the given mobile number even if he had deposited the bill.

The complainant contacted the mobile number mentioned in the message and the call taker asked him that his electricity bill was not transferred to the department and that was why he was sent the message.

The miscreant asked him to download Any Desk app from the app store and then asked the complainant to transfer Re 1 to get his electricity bill account ID updated.

"Soon as I transferred Rs 1, I got a message of deduction of Rs 25,000 from my bank account. I called him and asked why Rs 25,000 was deducted and he disconnected the phone, saying he did not know anything about this transaction," the complainant said.

He said he immediately contacted the bank and informed them about the money transaction.

"I was told by the bank officials that two transactions of Rs 25,000 and Rs 98,512 respectively were done through my bank account. On the suggestion of bank officials, I lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime Helpline and the bank officials have also promised to register a case in this connection," he said.

ADCP, Central Zone, Rajesh Srivastava said that an FIR under the charges of dishonesty and IT Act has been lodged while cyber cell has begun investigating the case.

It is noteworthy that a few weeks ago, a former high court judge and several civil servants were sent similar messages by the cyber scammers on pretext of payment of electricity bill.

Source: IANS