Fraudster lures with easy money and links his mobile number to student’s bank account

Chamarajanagar: Online fraudsters are using ingenious means to commit crimes and one such way is to ask a person to open a new bank account and link the same with the mobile number provided by the fraudsters. While duping after obtaining the One Time Password (OTP) has become common, opening bank accounts in the name of others has become a new trend.

These are first-party frauds that involve accounts opened by a legitimate person. This person may be the actual fraudster or someone the criminal has manipulated the person into acting as a front for the online fraud.

A student from Chamarajanagar has filed a Police complaint at District Cybercrime, Economic Offences and Narcotics (CEN) Police that his bank account has been used to commit online fraud. Also, cases have been booked against him in Tumakuru and Gujarat.

Twenty-year-old M. Pavan Kumar was contacted by fraudsters through Instagram and they came up with an attractive proposition to earn money without investing anything. As per the proposition, fraudsters sent messages to Pavan Kumar to just open a bank account and link the same with the mobile number provided to him as part of the bank’s KYC (Know Your Customer) process.

Fraudsters know that banks and financial institutions monitor new account activity for a period and perform ongoing due diligence as part of KYC policy. Therefore, they will make the new account opening process legitimate after furnishing all the data to the banks.

Trusting the messages, Pavan Kumar opened an account on Apr. 18 at HDFC Bank, Kollegala, as directed in the messages sent to him. The bank sent him a passbook and ATM card on Apr. 23. Pavan Kumar confirmed to the fraudster that the account has been opened and he has received the passbook and ATM card.

KYC application

The fraudster then asked Pavan Kumar to give a KYC application to the bank and link the bank account with the mobile number 77957-29103. The fraudster did not come face-to-face but communicated with the student through messages. The conman promised him good returns after the account was linked with the phone number.

But on May 26, the staff from HDFC Bank called Pavan Kumar to inform him that his bank account has been used to cheat people (money transfers) in Tumakuru and Gujarat. As the account in his name has been used for fraudulent transactions, the bank told the student that his account would be frozen. A case also has been booked against Pavan Kumar.

Shocked by these developments, the student has lodged a complaint with Chamarajanagar CEN Police. A Police officer told Star of Mysore that once the mobile number-linked account details are handed over to the fraudsters, they indulge in crime to take away money from the victims and deposit in these accounts. They will immediately withdraw the money even before the banks act on the fraudulent accounts. Even the SIM cards in such dealings are obtained through fraudulent means and only the innocent persons in possession of the SIM card and the bank account are caught while the real culprits vanish and it is difficult to trace them.