Retired railway employee duped of Rs 32 lakh in pension update scam

A cyber fraudster in Nagpur duped a retired Central Railway employee of Rs 31,97,000 by promising to get his pension revised as per rules. Posing as an official calling from the DRM office, he first won the victim's trust and then obtained confidential bank details by sending fake pension documents over WhatsApp. As soon as he got this information, he transferred the money out of the account. The case has once again shown that retired employees are being targeted in this manner.

The victim is 61-year-old Vijay Dhabre, who retired from Central Railway about a year ago. On September 8, while he was at home, he received a call from a person who identified himself as Dharmendra Yadav from the DRM office and said Dhabre's pension was going to be revised as per rules. To make this believable, he sent fake pension documents prepared in Dhabre's name over WhatsApp. Seeing these documents convinced Dhabre that the caller was indeed a railway official, and he placed complete trust in him.

On the pretext of filling out a form to get the pension revised, the accused obtained Dhabre's bank account details, ATM card number and CVV. As soon as he had this confidential information, the accused transferred Rs 31,97,000 out of Dhabre's account. Dhabre realised he had been defrauded after he received messages on his phone about the reduced balance in his account. He immediately filed a complaint with the cyber police, who have registered a case of financial fraud against an unidentified accused and begun an investigation.

Cyber fraudsters are currently targeting retired employees and senior citizens with calls in the name of pension revision, pending pension, dearness allowance or other government benefits. To create the impression that they are government officials, they give a fake identity and also send fake documents over WhatsApp that look like official papers. Such fake documents are used to build trust before confidential bank information is extracted. People have been advised not to share any confidential banking information if they receive such a call, and to verify the caller by contacting the concerned department's official office directly.