Pune: A 79-year-old resident of Kondhwa, who wanted to file a complaint after receiving soil instead of desert rose seeds he had ordered online, lost Rs3.96 lakh to a cybercrook. The cybercrook shared an APK file with the elderly man under the pretext of helping him file a grievance and siphoned money from his bank account.The fraud took place in July. The man lodged a complaint with the Kondhwa police on Wednesday. An officer from the Kondhwa police said the complainant had ordered desert rose seeds through an e-commerce website. On July 25, he received the parcel. He found only six seeds and soil in it instead of the remaining seeds he had ordered. “When he contacted a cellphone number mentioned on the parcel, the person on the other end told him that he would call back because of a network issue. The person later called him from another cellphone number and assured him that he would help him,” the officer said.The officer said the caller told the complainant to transfer Rs 5 as a fee. The elderly man transferred the amount through UPI. However, the transaction could not be completed. On July 29, the man’s bank alerted him about suspicious transactions from his account. He immediately asked the bank to block his account. “But on July 29 and 30, as many as 17 transactions were made from his bank account and Rs3.96 lakh was siphoned off,” he said. The officer said the police had sought transaction details from the complainant’s bank. “Our investigation is underway,” he said.
