When the woman dialed a number listed in the Bombay Society for the Prevention for Cruelty to Animals, she was asked to download an application on her phone after Rs 30,000 was debited from her account
This picture has been used for representational purposes.
In a bid to make arrangements for her pet cat’s cremation, a 28-year-old woman lost Rs 30,000 after she contacted a number listed in the website of an animal welfare organisation. According to a report in the Mumbai Mirror, when the Cuffe Parade resident, who is a lawyer by profession, dialed a number listed in the Bombay Society for the Prevention for Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA), she was asked to download an application on her phone after which Rs 30,000 was debited from her account.
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The Cuffe Parade police said the woman was searching for BSPCA’s contact online to know the procedures to cremate her mother’s pet cat. She was quoted in the report saying that when she contacted a number listed on the animal welfare association website, a person named Rajiv Sharma received the call, who asked her to send a message to another number. The woman further said she received a link to a Google document that prompted her to fill certain details, including a UPIN. As she could not complete the procedure, she asked Sharma, who told to download Google Pay or AnyDesk, a remote desktop software, and link her debit card with it.
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The woman then got suspicious and closed the applications, after which she received notifications from her bank about four withdrawals amounting Rs 30,000, the report added. She immediately contacted her bank and stopped the transactions. She then contacted BSPCA and shared her experience with them and the secretary Lt Colonel JC Khanna told her that they have received several complaints of being cheated in a similar way.
The lawyer then filed a complaint with the Cuffe Parade police, but they are yet to register an FIR. Meanwhile, BSPCA filed a complaint with Kalachowkie police station about people’s complaints of losing money after calling a number listed on the BSPCA's website. The BSPCA told police that people were trying to transfer money to donate for animal care or to pay for cremating animals, the report said.
Khanna also told them that he had contacted Google to report the fraud and remove the number from the organisation’s list on its website. He alleged that the culprits had also promised people jobs in BSPCA’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals where they had asked people to pay for their registration, uniform, and interviews, the report said.
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