Mumbai woman tweets to IRCTC, gets duped of Rs 64,000 by cyber criminals

A woman from Vile Parle, Mumbai was allegedly duped of Rs 64,000 while she was enquiring about her RAC (reservation against cancellation) ticket on the IRCTC’s official Twitter handle. The woman informed that she got a call from a person claiming to be from the IRCTC, who convinced her to transfer the money.

Three tickets were booked by MN Meena on the IRCTC website from Mumbai to Bhuj in Gujarat on January 14. However, due to low availability, Meena got RAC seats. To enquire if the tickets were confirmed, she tweeted to IRCTC with the train tickets and mobile number. Soon after she received a call from a person who claimed to be a customer support executive from IRCTC and offered to help them confirm their RAC ticket, the local police stated.

The person on call sent a link on the phone and asked Meena to fill up the details mentioned along with a payment of Rs 2 to confirm the train ticket to Bhuj. As she followed the instructions, she received a message that read Rs 64,011 had been withdrawn from the bank account.

On realising that she had been duped, Meena approached the local Vile Parle police station. The police then registered an FIR in the case against unidentified people.

The FIR read, "We had tweeted the complaint, thinking that if our RAC seats do not get confirmed, we would have to travel sitting which will be difficult."

As per an officer, the victim tried calling on the number, after she realised they were duped. But the number was found to be switched off.

A Vile Parle officer informed that five fraudulent transactions had been carried out. “Cyber criminals keep trawling social media platforms and look for such cases where people put up details online. Using these details, the accused call up gullible victims and dupe them.”

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