Senior Citizen Duped, Loses Over Rs 2 Lakh In Pension Card Scam

A 65-year-old businessman from Ahmedabad lost Rs 2.4 lakh in a cyber fraud after falling for a scammer's promise of a pension card offered to senior citizens. The man reported the incident to the local authorities immediately after realising that scamsters had duped him. The incident took place at around 9 pm on October 13, when he received a call from an unknown number. The man (victim) informed that the caller falsely claimed to be a representative calling from the Bank of Baroda’s Mumbai branch. During the conversation, the caller told him about a pension card offered to senior citizens and asked him to take this card to avail the benefits.  

Believing the caller and the product details, the man agreed to apply for this card. It was then that the caller sent an Android Application Package (APK) file to the victim’s mobile number via WhatsApp, as per the Times of India report. The APK file was named “BoB Bank senior citizen verification.apk” to appear as an official bank document. Trusting the caller, the 65-year-old victim followed his instructions, clicked the link, and installed the file.

Once installed, the application requested several device permissions from the victim and led him to share his personal details like name, mobile number, and Mobile Banking Personal Identification Number (MPIN) and Transaction Personal Identification Number (TPIN).  The unsuspecting elderly entered all this confidential information.  

Under the pretext of processing the pension card application, the caller instructed the victim not to switch off his mobile phone. The victim obediently followed the caller’s instruction without much enquiry and waited for the application process to complete. However, shortly after sharing his personal information along with the PINs on the corrupted app, the man started receiving multiple bank debit alert notifications because money was being transferred from his account.

Within minutes, a total of RS 2.4 lakh was withdrawn from his account through four separate transactions. The victim was shocked, and when he questioned the caller about the transaction alerts, the scammer still allegedly assured him that the money was safe in the account and that no money had been deducted from his account.

This shows how brazen cyber fraudsters can be. In this case, the fraudsters continued dismissing the victim’s suspicions even after the fraud was evident.

However, by this time, despite the caller’s reassurances, the victim started feeling doubtful. He called his bank for clarification. The bank officials confirmed the unauthorised activity and advised him to immediately report the fraud to the cybercrime police on the helpline number 1930.

As per the bank’s guidance, the businessman registered a formal complaint with the cybercrime cell and subsequently approached the local police to report and lodge an official police complaint regarding the cyber scam.

Amid rapid digitisation, cyber frauds have become more and more common, and senior citizens are an easy target mainly because they are not well aware of how digital systems work and also because of the chances that they have of being duped. As digital frauds and cyber scams are growing, one should be extra careful in sharing personal information with strangers who may come across in the guise of bank officials, customer care executives, police, or any other government agency, as this could be a trap for fraud.