GUWAHATI: A resident of Satgaon area in Guwahati has lost Rs 72,600 for trusting an unverified email. Azminur Islam had applied online for Bank Mitra Customer Service Point in the month of November.
Customer Service Point is also called a Bank Mitra. Bank Mitra is a concept designed under PPP (Public Private Partnership) where a Bank Mitra or CSP works as a representative or agent of bank and is appointed to provide banking service to citizens. Islam wanted to apply for CSP and start his own services in Guwahati.
In the subsequent days, Azminur had received two emails. While he ignored the first email, he trusted the second email. The second mail claimed that if he wanted the CSP then he had to pay Rs 15,000 for registration. After this incident started a series of events during which he paid a total of Rs 72,600 over Google Pay.
He first paid Rs 3,600 for registration and Rs 10,000 for audit balance. He was told he needed to pay more for the balance, so he paid another Rs 10,000. The caller who was associated with him told him to pay additional money for the materials they will send him including the CCTV camera and other banking items. So he paid another Rs 15,000 to them. He further booked their flight tickers. All this happened within a span of a week.
“I made the payments over Google Pay as the account number to which the money was being transferred was named CSP,” Azminur informed G Plus.
Azminur doubted only when he was asked to pay Rs 12,000 luggage charges by the people who were coming to meet him. "At that moment, I had a doubt," Azminur told G Plus.
Azminur was trying hard to get the CSP and was thus exploited by the unidentified people. "I was trying hard to get a CSP and utilized my savings and my father's money for this," added Azminur. Another revelation came to him when he realized that to avail a CSP, one had to visit the nearest bank and meet the branch manager.
He is now trying to get his money back and strangely the caller with whom he had been in touch responded to his calls. "They claim that they will pay me back within 30 to 90 days," said Azminur, who believes that the miscreants are trying to misdirect him.
As such, Azminur has filed a complaint online in Cyber Crime Portal of Assam Police with the Support ID: 2364565013295439797. He has further approached the Satgaon Police Station to register a complaint regarding the matter.
"The police and the administration have been giving awareness in this regard. What can we do if educated people fall into such online traps? The success rate of recovering the money in such cases is very low," Sunil Kalita, Officer in Charge (OC) Satgaon Police Station told G Plus.