Bengaluru: Man gets duped by food delivery service; loses Rs 95,000 while ordering pizza

In Bengaluru, N.V. Sheikh, a city techie fell victim to online fraudsters when he got duped by a food delivery service who accessed his bank account stealing around Rs 95,000. Sheikh used the food delivery app on his smartphone to order a pizza on December 1 afternoon in Bengaluru's Koramangala after which he waited for an hour but his meal showed no signs of coming. He then looked for the customer care service of the food mart which said that the order had not been accepted on the other end and that a refund would be initiated. The man behind the phone allegedly told Sheikh that he would receive a refund request on his phone after which he would need to click on the link for it to be processed.

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Madiwala Police said that when Sheikh did as directed, he became a victim of phishing. The fraudsters then accessed his bank account details withdrawing Rs 95,000 within minutes. Sheikh then filed a complaint with the Madiwala Police who are now investigating the matter. The victim said that he was extremely distressed since he was saving the money for his mother's cancer treatment. The spokesperson of the food delivery company said that they did not have a calling service for customer care but only chat and email. "While we make all efforts to ensure customer safety and security, we urge our customers to be vigilant and not share personal or bank account details with anyone," the spokesperson was quoted. Bengaluru has started to become infamous for such phishing scams. In November, another Bengaluru resident had lost around Rs 85,000 in a payment app scam.

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Rise in online frauds

It was also reported recently by a study done by Kaspersky, that a number of phishing attacks in the form of browser notifications are gaining popularity. Security researchers say the share of users hit by browser notification scams continues to grow month-on-month this year. In the first three quarters this year, the cybersecurity firm says it protected more than 14 million users fraudulent, unwanted browser notifications. Web browsers explicitly seek users' consent before sending notifications. But hackers have come up with some tricks that rather force people to enable browser notifications.

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Read:Browser notifications scams tripled in first three quarters of 2019: Kaspersy