Online scams are increasing by leaps and bounds. Millions of rupees are being stolen from banks by fooling them. Scammers are adopting new methods to target people. Thus, a new type of scam has spread panic again. Its name is Digital Arrest.
Recently, the incident of digital arrest from Hyderabad has also come to the fore. Although this time the fraudsters could not succeed in this scam. This is because the bank staff had already rescued the hapless senior citizen from this scam. The biggest thing is that if the scam was successful, the person could have lost Rs 13 lakhs.
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What is the whole thing?
In fact, today scammers targeted a 61-year-old pediatrician. He was a long time customer of State Bank. The scammers falsely claimed that he had been ‘digitally arrested’ and told him not to tell anyone about it. 13 lakhs to get rid of this problem. Afraid of such a threat, the customer contacted the bank to break his fixed deposit and withdraw 13 lakh rupees.
Seeing the stress of the customer, one of the officers of that bank got suspicious about withdrawing so much money suddenly. He took him to the branch manager. Then when the customer was asked about the reason for the withdrawal, the customer could not give a clear answer. The bank staff then asked him to come with a family member. He refused to pay.
Then, after three days of asking and questioning the customer for information, the bank staff became more suspicious. The customer was shown a report on Prime Minister’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’, which talked about this ‘digital arrest’ and the bank also assured him that no such thing happens. The bank then put the senior customer in touch with the National Cybercrime Helpline (1930). This proves that it was indeed a digital arrest.
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What is digital arrest?
This is a new method of cyber fraud, in which fraudsters threaten to implicate the victim in false cases and demand huge sums of money. In this case the fraudsters instructed the victims to stay at home, away from bank employees. Contacting the scammers via a video or audio call is also recommended. In such scams, scammers mostly target senior citizens. People with less technical knowledge are especially targeted.
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How to protect yourself from this scam
If a person claiming to be a government official asks for money, be alert immediately. Do not answer such calls.
- Do not share your bank account, ATM PIN, OTP etc with anyone.
- In case of any suspicious situation contact Bank or Cyber Helpline (1930).
- Inform your family members immediately if any such incident occurs.
- If someone tries to cheat, report it on the National Cybercrime Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in).