Hyderabad: Cybercriminals are finding new ways to trick Hyderabad residents through fake customer care scams, police officials have warned. In recent cases, older people and online shoppers lost over ₹2 lakh.
On August 26, a 69-year-old man from Azampura ordered makeup products through the Blinkit app. After receiving damaged items, he searched Google for Blinkit’s customer care number. He dialed a number shown online, not knowing it belonged to a fraudster.
The caller promised a product replacement. Soon after, another scammer contacted the man via WhatsApp. He told him to install a file on his wife’s phone using Paytm. The file, sent as an APK, gave the scammers remote access to the phone. They withdrew ₹4,193. Using the same method, they accessed his daughter-in-law’s phone and took ₹98,001. Altogether, the family lost ₹1,02,194.
In another case, a 37-year-old man from Chandrayangutta added ₹1,12,500 to his Amazon Pay wallet on August 14. He used corporate gift vouchers to order two five-gram gold coins worth ₹55,489 each from Malabar Gold and Diamonds. Later, the seller canceled both orders, and the refund went back into his Amazon Pay account.
Three days later, on August 17, his Amazon account was deactivated. When he contacted Amazon support, he learned that someone had changed his mobile number and email ID. Three unauthorized transactions followed. He reported a total loss of ₹1,11,740 to cybercrime police.
Police have urged the public not to rely on random customer care numbers found through online searches. They also warned against installing unknown APK files, which can give hackers full control of a device. Investigations in both cases are ongoing.