SHILLONG: Despite repeated police advisories, people continue to fall prey to conmen who seek their ATM card details through phone calls.
Police have registered several cases in the last few days after people were duped by those who claimed to be bank employees.
One Dipankar Das Choudhury (64) lodged a complaint at Shillong Sadar PS stating that on September 16 around 12.23 pm, he received a phone call from unidentified person claiming to be SBI official and asked about his ATM details. Choudhury provided the details.
Later, when he checked his account he found that Rs. 61,999 was withdrawn from his account.
In another incident an amount of Rs 23,819.41 was also debited from the account of one Paresh Chandra Barman through online shopping without his knowledge
He lodged a complaint in this regard on September 16.
In another instances, Ebrenstar Marbaniang lodged a complaint at Laitumkhrah PS stating that on September 15 around 10.40 pm, he received a phone call from an unidentified person claiming to be SBI official and asked about his ATM details to which the complainant obliged.
Later, he received an alert message saying that Rs. 50,000 was withdrawn from his account.
Similarly, one Hirendra Mahanta received a phone call from unidentified person claiming to be SBI official on September 14 around 3 pm and asked about his ATM details which he provided. Later, when he checked his account he detected Rs. 46,129 was withdrawn from his account. In spite of repeated warnings to public not to divulge their ATM details to any person calling on their mobile phone, a number of civilians are falling prey to it and losing their money through online shopping, said a senior police official.