Man loses Rs 99 lakh after dialing fake FASTag helpline number

NT Correspondent

Cyber fraud cases have been on the rise lately, taking different forms. In a fresh case, a Brahmavar native who was on his way to Mangaluru on Sunday lost Rs 99,997 while trying to recharge his FASTag account. Francis Pius was reportedly travelling from Brahmavar to Mangaluru when he realised there wasn't enough money in his FASTag account.

As his car was about to enter the toll plaza in Hejamady, Pius reportedly stopped the car and googled the toll collection system's helpline number. This decision cost him dearly, as it landed him in the net of a cyber fraud who stole money from his account. Hoping to get a representative from the FASTag customer cell, Pius dialled up a number that popped up on Google.

However, it was run by a con man who offered to help him. Introducing himself as a representative of Paytm Fastag, the person at the other end asked Pius to share the one-time password (OTP) that was sent to his phone.

Pius followed the instructions given by the "FASTag representative", and initially Rs 49,000 got deducted from his bank account, sources said. It was not before four more transactions went through that Pius finally understood what was happening.

By then, amounts of Rs 19,999, Rs 19,998, Rs 9,999 and Rs 1,000 got deducted from his account, the sources added. Immediately, he dialled a Cyber Economics and Narcotics (CEN) police in Udupi and filed a complaint regarding the matter.

The cops later found out that Pius was made to install a suspicious app, which could have debited the amount from his phone using his account details. The investigation team is in the process of zeroing in on the account to which the money was transferred following the incident.