Ahmedabad woman loses ₹7 lakh in pension-update phishing scam

A 51-year-old retired woman from Gulbai Tekra was duped of ₹6.97 lakh after an impostor posing as an official from the Bank of India’s zonal office allegedly extracted confidential information on the pretext of “updating her pension certificate” and siphoned money from four linked accounts. The Cyber Crime Cell of Ahmedabad Police has registered an FIR and begun an investigation.

According to the complaint filed by Takshashila Shah, she received a call around 9.30 am on November 28 from a man identifying himself as ‘Divyeshbhai Goriya’, claiming to be speaking from the Bank of India’s zonal office. The caller informed her that her pension account needed to be updated and sought personal details.

Believing the call to be genuine, Shah shared the information. Shortly afterwards, she received a WhatsApp message from another number stating that her “pension certificate had been updated”.

Shah told the police that around 5.30 pm the same day, she received an unexpected OTP on her phone. On checking her messages, she found that multiple unauthorised transactions had been carried out from her accounts, including her personal savings account, pension account, and two other accounts linked to her daughter, who works with an IT firm in Bengaluru.

The FIR lists 13 transactions, all carried out on November 28, amounting to a total withdrawal of ₹6.97 lakh across accounts. The largest transfer was ₹3.5 lakh, followed by withdrawals of ₹1 lakh, ₹1 lakh, ₹38,000, and several smaller debits ranging between ₹344 and ₹24,000.

Realising she had been defrauded, Shah immediately contacted the 1930 Cyber Crime Helpline and subsequently filed a written complaint with the Cyber Crime Police Station. 

Cyber Crime officials stated that the caller had impersonated a bank official to obtain confidential information and fraudulently transfer funds, causing substantial financial loss to the complainant.

Police have booked the accused under sections related to cheating, impersonation, criminal breach of trust and cyber fraud, and have begun tracking the phone numbers and beneficiary bank accounts used in the scam.