Bhubaneswar: An IT professional lost over Rs 80,000 while placing an order for liquor online from social networking platform Facebook, Tuesday night.
According to a source, the victim found a phone number from an advertisement on Facebook that claimed to receive online orders for home delivery of liquor from a wine shop named ‘Kadambari’. When he contacted on the number, the seller shared a PhonePe number and asked him to pay Rs 980.
After making the payment when the victim didn’t get any information regarding his order, he called the given number. Then, he was told that the amount was deducted by mistake and that the order was not successful. While promising the customer of an automatic refund against the failed order, the victim was told to scan the bar code four times.
“When I did not receive the order, I called on that number again. He told me about some registration process and later sent a barcode asking me to scan it. When I scanned the code four times on PhonePe, a sum of Rs 79,181 was deducted from my SBI and Standard Charted bank accounts,” alleged the IT professional.
He further said, “The name of the PhonePe number was Narendra Singh. But after a few followups, I received a refund of Rs 3,000 from one Prathamesh Mestry.”
The victim later went to Chandrasekharpur police station to lodge an FIR, Wednesday. That said, the cops refused to register the complaint claiming it to be a case of cybercrime.