City businessman falls victim to online fraud

Kolkata: A city based businessman fell victim to a unique modus operandi of cyber crime in which a huge amount of money got withdrawn from his bank account as soon as he scanned barcodes sent to his mobile phone by the

fraudster.

The businessman, Chitradip Chakraborty, of Bikramgarh in Jadavpur said: "My friend owns a sweet shop at Lord's More. On Friday, he received a phone call from a person posing himself as an Indian Army personnel and asked to deliver 200 kg sweets at Dum Dum base where

he claimed to have been

posted.

The caller even sent some pictures of an army jawan, Aadhar Card and an army canteen card to gain our faith."Since the sweet shop owner did not have any access to online transactions, he sought Chakraborty's help to get an advance of Rs 20,000 through online transaction in the latter's bank account and gave the complainant's mobile phone number to the caller. A bar code was sent to Chakraborty's Whatspp and Rs 5 was deducted as soon as he scanned it. On enquiry the complainant was told that it was just for verification and Rs 10 got credited in his bank when Chakraborty scanned the second barcode sent to him to take the complainant into his confidence.

Subsequently three more bar codes were sent to Chakraborty scanning which led to deduction of Rs 20,000 twice and another Rs 9,999.

Later Chakraborty lodged a complaint at the Jadavpur police station following which

he was asked to contact the Cyber Crime police station in

Lalbazar.