Ahmedabad Businessman Loses ₹1.64 Lakh After Fake Zomato, Swiggy, CRED Messages Flood Phone
Summarized by AI; it may make mistakes. Check important info
Summarized by AI; it may make mistakes. Check important info
A 27-year-old businessman from Hansol allegedly lost ₹1.64 lakh from his HDFC Bank account after cybercriminals flooded his mobile phone with fake messages appearing to come from apps including Zomato, Swiggy and CRED, police said.
Airport police have registered a case against an unidentified person and launched an investigation into the alleged cyber fraud.
₹1.64 Lakh Withdrawn In Three Transactions
The complainant, identified as Dheeraj Ramakhyani, lives in Patel Society near Indira Circle in Hansol and helps his father run a fruit business at Naroda Memco.
According to the complaint, Ramakhyani was at home on September 3 when messages from applications and services including Zomato, Swiggy, District, Khatabook and CRED began arriving on his mobile phone from around 2 pm.
Shortly afterwards, he received an alert stating that ₹48,000 had been debited from his HDFC Bank account in the name of Balinder Kriya.
Two further transactions of ₹56,000 and ₹60,700 were allegedly carried out, taking the total amount withdrawn to ₹1,64,700.
Ramakhyani realised that he had not made any of the transactions and suspected that his mobile phone had been compromised.
Cyber Helpline Complaint Filed
The businessman subsequently went to the bank with a friend and followed the bank's instructions to report the incident through the national cybercrime helpline 1930.
He later approached Airport police, who registered a complaint against an unidentified accused and began examining the transaction details and other evidence.
SMS Bombing Suspected
Investigators are also looking into whether the accused used an SMS bombing technique to overwhelm the victim's phone with messages.
In such incidents, a large number of messages or OTP alerts can be sent within a short period, potentially making it difficult for a victim to notice a genuine bank transaction alert among the incoming messages.
Police are examining whether the flood of messages in this case was deliberately used to distract the victim or push the actual debit alerts further down the message inbox while the fraudulent transactions were being carried out.
