A Bengaluru doctor falls victim to an increasingly common scam involving fake helpline numbers, exposing gaps in online security that are enabling thieves to siphon millions through convincing impersonation tactics across India.
A 71-year-old doctor in Bengaluru has become the latest victim of a customer-care fraud that banks and cyber specialists say is now following a familiar script: a false helpline number found online, a convincing caller posing as support staff and, within minutes, an emptied account. Police said the Indiranagar resident lost Rs 5 lakh after seeking help to return a shirt bought online, a case that mirrors warnings in Union Bank of India’s cyber-security guide about fake contact numbers being planted on the internet to lure people into calling the criminals themselves.
According to the complaint, the doctor searched Google for a customer-care number on Wednesday afternoon and rang the number he found. After two disconnected calls, a man calling himself Mahindra Pandit allegedly took the third call, asked for the doctor’s debit-card details and then moved the conversation to WhatsApp. The victim followed a series of instructions and, he later told police, the fraudster appeared to gain control of his phone. Seven transactions drained Rs 5 lakh in about five minutes. Although one-time passwords began arriving, he was unable to stop the payments. The sequence is close to cases elsewhere in which victims were pushed through what looked like routine “verification” steps until the scammers had effective control of the device or payment app.
That is precisely the risk described in Union Bank’s “Fake Customer Care/Contact Centre Scam” guidance. The bank says fraudsters alter customer-care details online, build fake webpages or manipulate search listings so that worried customers reach the wrong number first. Once contact is made, the criminals seek whatever will unlock an account: PAN and Aadhaar details, card numbers, CVV codes, PINs, mobile-banking credentials or access to files and contacts stored on a handset. The guide says the fraud then escalates through links, malicious apps or remote access, allowing money to be siphoned out before the victim understands what has happened.
A similar pattern surfaced in Kochi, where The New Indian Express reported that another doctor lost just over Rs 5 lakh after receiving an email falsely claiming that Rs 23.13 lakh had been debited from his Axis Bank account. The message included a customer-care number. After he called it, a second caller posed as a bank employee, promised to reverse the supposed loss and collected personal details including the doctor’s PAN number and date of birth. He was then told to open the bank’s mobile app. When he logged in, Rs 5.09 lakh was transferred out. Police later told the newspaper that no such debit of Rs 23.13 lakh had ever taken place and that investigators were trying to trace the destination account.
In Delhi, Hindustan Times described how Pradeep Chowdhury, a doctor from Safdarjung Enclave, was caught by almost the same trick while trying to recover a trivial overcharge on a cab ride. He had been billed Rs 113 too much on a work trip to Gurgaon, searched online for the cab company’s helpline instead of using the app and was redirected to a man identified as Rakesh Mishra. Chowdhury was persuaded to download a remote-sensing application, open his e-wallet, key in the refund amount and enter the first six digits of his phone number as part of what he was told was a verification process. After he also shared an OTP, Rs 4.9 lakh was taken in four transactions. The report said investigators believed the fake service number may have been posted online by the fraudsters themselves.
TV9 Telugu’s reconstruction of the same cab case showed how carefully these scams are choreographed. It said the victim had booked an Uber ride priced at Rs 205 but was charged Rs 318, then found a number on Google that redirected him from 6289339056 to 6294613240 and finally to 9832459993, where “Rakesh Mishra” answered. He was allegedly told to install RustDesk from Google Play and send a Paytm message reading “RFND 112”. When he asked why his phone number was needed, he was told it was for account verification. TV9 reported that the unauthorised debits included Rs 83,760, Rs 4 lakh, Rs 20,012 and Rs 49,101, with three payments routed through Paytm and one through Punjab National Bank. The lesson is not the size of the original dispute, but how little it takes to get a victim to make the first call.
The method is also spreading well beyond shopping returns and ride-hailing complaints. In Rajkot this year, The Times of India reported that Ketan Dholakia, a 42-year-old GETCO lineman, alleged that callers posing as Axis Bank customer-care staff cheated him of Rs 5.18 lakh while pretending to cancel a Card Protection Plan carrying an annual charge of Rs 2,499. One caller identified herself as “Priyanka”, another as “Priya Sharma”, and the victim was guided through the CRED app under the guise of video and audio KYC. Police said money was withdrawn across cards linked to four banks, including Rs 2,95,813 from an SBI card and Rs 1.47 lakh from an ICICI card. Dholakia later blocked the cards and reported the fraud to the national cybercrime helpline, 1930.
Consumer-finance writers say the sales pitch changes, but the pressure points rarely do. Moneycontrol, writing this year about bogus calls promising “unclaimed” insurance money, warned that fake refund stories are designed to sound urgent, official and oddly lucrative. “In neither case does Rs 50,000 magically become Rs 5 lakh,” it wrote, urging people to use only the number listed on an insurer’s or company’s own website and to mistrust unsolicited calls asking for documents, OTPs or upfront payments. Union Bank’s advice is similar: never download an app because an unknown caller asks you to, never hand over PINs or passwords and report suspected fraud quickly through 1930 or cybercrime.gov.in. In the Bengaluru doctor’s case, the transaction trail may now be with investigators, but the route into the fraud began with something much simpler: a search result that looked official.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
