In a fresh case of cyber fraud, a 74-year-old man lost 1 Lakh while he was trying to renew his Netflix subscription. So far, we have heard cases of scammers sending malware links through messages, but this time, the cyber criminals tried duping an old man by asking him to renew his Netflix subscription. It is always important to verify the sources when you get an email or a message claiming to be from a verified source.
As per an Indian Express report, a Mumbai-based man lost over 1 Lakh after he allegedly shared his bank account details with scammers masquerading as Netflix. The scammers masquerading as Netflix, tricked the user into sharing his bank account details in order to renew his Netflix subscription. He was informed that his subscription was on hold over non-payment of Rs 499.
The 74-year-old man, who is into the import of plastic printing, believed that the email he received from the cyber criminals was from Netflix. He fell for the trap because it had stark similarities with the communications emails sent by the OTT platform to users. After realizing that he had been robbed of his money, the man then filed an FIR at the Juhu police station on November 29.
“The fraudulent email also provided a link to make a payment of Rs 499. Without thinking twice, the septuagenarian clicked on the link and filled in all his credit card details. A One Time Password (OTP) was generated on his mobile phone for payment of Rs 1.22 lakh,” a police officer told the daily.
The police revealed that the man shared the OTP on the email without checking the amount for which he was sharing the OTP. Although the email stated that he is supposed to pay only Rs 499, the OTP was sent for Rs 1 Lakh. The man realized that he has been duped only when he received a call from the bank asking him to press 8 if he had not made the payment of Rs 1.22 lakh.
One major takeaway from this incident is you should never share your OTP with anybody, even if Netflix or any other company asks you to. Firstly, no authorized company will ask you to share your OTP via mail. If you receive such messages, best is to ignore them and then check with the companies on their official social media accounts. Scammers often look for soft targets, for people who are not tech-savvy but the make the messages very believable so even the well-versed person can fall for the trap. In order to safeguard your hard-earned money, always double check the sources and never share your personal details such as bank account number, aadhar over emails.
