A 71-year-old woman from Wadala, Mumbai, lost her entire life savings of around ₹18.5 lakh after she tried to order just one litre of milk online.
The incident happened earlier this month on August 4 when the elderly woman received a phone call from a man who introduced himself as “Deepak.” He claimed someone to be an executive from a milk company. He told her that he would help her place an order through her mobile phone.
He sent her a link on WhatsApp and asked her to open it while staying on the call to make it look convincing. He instructed her to type in her details and promised that this would complete the order. The call went on for over an hour. Eventually, the woman lost patience and hung up, not realizing she had already fallen into a trap by clicking the suspicious link.
The very next day, the same person called her again. During the conversation, he managed to extract more details from her. At this point, she still didn’t suspect anything unusual.
A few days later, when she went to her bank for routine work, she was shocked to find that ₹1.7 lakh was missing from one of her accounts. Alarmed, she checked her other accounts and discovered that they, too, had been completely emptied. In total, the fraudsters had wiped out ₹18.5 lakh that was her entire savings.
Police officers believe that as soon as she clicked on the fraudulent link, the scammer gained unauthorized access to her phone, allowing him to take control of her bank details.
The woman immediately reported the matter, following which the police registered an official complaint. A case has been filed and an investigation is currently underway to trace the cybercriminal.
