87-year-old retired BMC doctor opens phishing link, loses ₹16 L

MUMBAI: An 87-year-old retired civic doctor was searching online for contact details of the civic body’s pest-control when she inadvertently called a scammer who cheated her of ₹16 lakh. An FIR was registered at the West Cyber Police Station on Friday against the unidentified woman.

The complainant retired in 1997 as a doctor in BMC. She lives in a residential society in Linking Road in Khar (West) and was looking for pest control measures for her society that fell in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s H West ward. On December 20, 2024, after searching for contacts on Google, she called a number to inquire, which was answered by a woman. The complainant was asked to pay ₹50 to register and told that she need not pay any further charges for the pest control service. The senior citizen said her online mobile services were not connected with the bank, but the woman on the phone, claiming to be a BMC employee, said she must pay the amount to avail the service.

The cyber fraud shared a malicious link to the victim’s phone and asked her to fill out the form to register. As soon as she opened the link to type in details, her phone was compromised, said an officer. The two were still engaged in the call when the victim received a text message on her mobile phone stating ₹1.85 lakh was debited from her Kotak Mahindra Bank account. When she raised this question to her, the fraud said she would return ₹1 lakh. On hearing this, the victim quickly disconnected the phone call. The next day, she visited three banks where she had accounts and found that no money had been deducted.

By January-end, the retired doctor visited the Punjab National Bank to update her passbook and noticed that over 40 transactions, which she did not initiate, took place between December 20, 2024, and January 22, 2025, to the tune of ₹13,35,000. She then visited Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank and saw that money was deducted from these bank accounts too, days after she last visited them. She immediately complained to the cyber helpline number and alleged that a woman pretending to be a BMC employee obtained her bank account information without consent and withdrew a sum of ₹16.14 lakh over multiple transactions.