Udaipur : An IAS officer on probation here in Udaipur, lost approximately 6 lakh rupees from her bank account after she clicked on a fake KYC (Know Your Customer) update link purportedly sent by the bank. The victim Dr T.Shubmangala , posted as sub divisional magistrate at Jhadol block of the district , received a KYC updation link on her mobile on monday afternoon while she was busy supervising an encroachment clearing task.
“I presumed the link to have been sent by the SBI bank for some updation and filled in the required information. I recieved an OTP (One Time Password) which was shared online and suddenly i received messages of 6 lakh rupees been debited from my account through three different transactions. I realized i have been tricked and immediately informed the customer care of the bank to stop the transactions, however, the money had been drained off by then” the officer informed. She complained about the case to the Udaipur police cyber cell but since the account was in a Bengaluru branch, she was directed to file an FIR with the Bengaluru police.
The lady officer also said that many other officials who have accounts with SBI had received similar KYC updation messages. The Jhadol Tehsildar too had received a similar link on the same day, however, she escaped the scammers as she was too busy in work and hence did not open the link. The IAS officer also said that the amount that was stolen from her account was transferred to an unknown PayTM account. When she informed the wallet authorities about the phishing, they could not provide any satisfactory response and later she came to know that the money was spent in purchase of gold vouchers from a company. The officer has also written a letter to the Inspector General of Police for stringent action against online scammers. She also demanded some training to be imparted to the police personnel to tackle such online frauds for the relief of the common people.