New Delhi: A 55-year-old Pawan Kumar Soni, a farmer who is a resident of Sri Ganganagar City in Rajasthan, has managed to recover over Rs 8 lakh that he lost in cyber fraud. Unhappy with police action, Soni took matters into his own hands, following the money trail to get his money back.


According to a PTI report, it all started when his 26-year-old son Harsh Vardhan opened a suspicious link sent to him on his mobile phone in a phishing message racket. Minutes after opening the link, he lost the money from his bank via different transactions. Vardhan lives in New Delhi’s Dwarka and was using the phone number registered in the name of his father which was linked with his bank account at the State Bank of India in Sri Ganganagar City.


Lost Over Rs 8 Lakh Of Loan Money To Phishing Scam


Around 3.45 PM on Saturday, (January 7), Varddhan got a message on his phone that read, "Your account is blocked, please update your KYC." Harsh already had a YONO application. However, the moment he opened the link, another duplicate app got downloaded on his cellphone.


"I thought that I should update my KYC on this new app so I entered my user ID and password. Suddenly, I started receiving messages for the withdrawal of money from my father's account and in seven minutes we lost Rs 8,03,899," Vardhan said, as quoted by PTI.


After some time, he understood his phone was hacked with the help of the duplicate app. A fraudster sitting somewhere else got access to his user ID and password that he had entered. The money swindled was a loan that his father had taken under Kisan Credit Card Scheme for farming purposes, the report mentioned.


Vardhan called his father Soni in Ganganagar City, who rushed to the bank to inform the manager about the incident.


Meanwhile, Vardhan went to the District Cyber Cell in Dwarka where he was asked to lodge an online complaint and visit the office on any working day. However, the bank manager called the local cyber cell in the area. The manager also alerted financial institutions to get those accounts blocked in which the money was transferred.


"The manager informed me that money went from my account to three accounts - Rs 5 lakh and 1.24 lakh went into PayU, 1,54,899 was transferred into CCAvenue, and the rest Rs 25,000 went into Axis Bank," said Soni.


PayU and CCAvenue are digital payment companies that act as a bridge between customers and business ventures. They collect payments from buyers when they make online purchases and deliver these to the merchants' bank accounts.


Police Personnel Made Only Hollow Promises And Did Nothing: Vardhan


According to PTI, Soni stated, “The bank manager informed me that PayU reverted to his email and said that it withheld the money. It also said that if it wouldn't receive any email from the cybercrime dept within two days for the reversal of the amount, it would release the money into the merchant's account.”


As soon as the digital payment company CCAvenue came to know about the said fraud, the company claimed that it got in touch with the cyber officials and provided all information on January 7.


However, his son Vardhan registered an online complaint. But when he went to lodge an FIR two days after the incident, he was denied to do so.


Vardhan said, "Then I met the additional DCP who directed the SHO to lodge an FIR. Finally, it was lodged on January 10, three days after the fraud happened."


Thereafter, Vardhan requested the Dwarka Cyber Cell to email PayU asking it to remit the money back into his father's account.  He alleged, "The police personnel made only hollow promises and did nothing.”


Elaborate Money Trail Leads To Scammer In Kolkata


Subsequently, Vardhan’s father went to the cyber cell of Ganganagar City, which wrote to PayU and he got back 6,24,000 money into his account. However, he wanted to track the money trail in Axis Bank and CCAvenue.


"On my request, my relatives' friends who are digital finance professionals tracked it and found that 25,000 that went into Axis bank was withdrawn from an ATM in Kolkata," Soni said, as cited by PTI. He further added, "Another Rs 1,54,899, which was transferred to CCAvenue, Rs 1,20,000 of that money was used by the fraudster to buy some stuff from a Jio store in Kolkata."


Soni also spoke to the concerned police station in Kolkata. However, they said that unless they would get it in writing from Delhi Police, they would not do anything.


According to the PTI report, Soni alleged that during all this time, he and his son kept telling Dwarka's cyber cell to write to Axis Bank, CCAvenue and Kolkata Police but they kept stalling him and did it only on January 23 which was too late.


He said, "I have found out his name and address as well.” Soni said such fraudsters register themselves as merchants with digital payment companies which don't do proper due diligence while checking their KYC.


He added, "When I can find the money trail, why can't the police? they can do it more quickly and easily." Dwarka’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Harsha Vardhan said that Delhi Police receive many complaints on ICMS (Integrated Complaint Management System) portal regularly.


Police Face Delays From Banks In Getting Details: Deputy Commissioner


The Deputy Commissioner said, "We process them and seek details from the concerned agencies/institutions. In the present case, the complaint was received on January 9 in the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) and FIR was registered on January 10. Account details were sought from the bank. On receiving the details, mails were sent. There is always scope to improve and do things faster but we also face delays from banks in getting details."


Experts feel that the end customer is the worst affected victim of phishing scams. They believe that payment networks and companies have a very big responsibility of preventing such incidents, the PTI report mentioned.