Techie loses ₹2.3 lakh to fake traffic fine scam

Bengaluru

A 57-year-old techie lost ₹2.3 lakh after falling prey to a fake traffic fine scam on Monday. Based on a complaint, the Whitefield cybercrime police have registered a case.

According to the complaint on January 26, the complainant received messages from unknown numbers, claiming that a traffic fine was pending. The messages contained a web link prompting payment.

Believing the message to be genuine, the complainant clicked on the link and proceeded to pay ₹500. During the transaction, fraudsters allegedly captured details of his credit card details. Subsequently, an amount of ₹2,32,272.14 was unauthorisedly debited from his credit card account and transferred to unknown persons.

In a similar case, a 53-year-old person, a resident of Uttarahalli, lost ₹3.03 lakh to similar fraud and filed a complaint with the south division cybercrime police on Tuesday.

The police have advised the public to verify traffic challans only through official government portals and to avoid clicking on suspicious links received via SMS or messaging platforms.