The city has seen a sharp spike in know your customer (KYC) fraud in an e-wallet and at least seven to eight complaints have been registered in the last two days, according to cyber crime police.
Senior police inspector Jayram Paigude of the cyber crime police station, said, “The sleuths of the Pune cyber crime have found a sudden spurt in the number of KYC-related frauds in a particular e-wallet. In the past two days alone, we received seven to eight complaint applications.”
In one of the cases, a fast food business owner in his 40s got a text message about his KYC which provided him with a phone number to call. When he called the number, the receiver told the complainant that the KYC was about to end and that his online wallet account will stop working at the end of the period. To update the KYC information, the man on the call asked the complainant to share details like name, phone number, Aadhaar card, PAN card, among others and put his call on hold, according to the police.
“As soon as the call was put on hold, Rs 80,000 was debited from his bank account. Then the call got disconnected. When he tried to call back, the call did not connect,” said PI Paigude.
According to the cyber crime police, the number of KYC-related frauds has grown in number after various online platforms were floated as alternate options for payments in days after demonetisation.
In an effort to curb e-wallet fraud-related cases, the police have frozen a total of 1,308 phone numbers attached to private e-wallet accounts and 2,245 IMEI numbers to disable phones suspected to be used in frauds. These numbers were blocked within four months between July and October 20 ..
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