Mumbai woman makes call to make dinner booking, ends up losing Rs 85,000 One of the scammers, who identified himself as Deepak Mishra, claimed to be a staff of the restaurant, and way led the unsuspecting callers Moneycontrol News @moneycontrolcom

A 34-year-old resident of Mumbai was duped of Rs 85,000 after multiple fraudulent transactions were made while she was busy making dinner reservations.

According to an Indian Express report, the victim, Manpreet Madan,  had tried booking a table at the Shiv Sagar restaurant in Santacruz on November 3 by making a calling the restaurant's number listed on Google.

After her calls went unanswered twice, one of the scammers, who identified himself as Deepak Mishra, returned Madan's call, and claimed to be a staff member of the restaurant.

Mishra said it would normally take them 45-60 minutes to get a table, but if Madan made a payment of Rs 25, she and her family would be given a quick pass, and they won’t have to wait in a queue.Police said that Mishra then asked Madan to transfer the amount via Google Pay, a digital wallet platform.

The report noted that shortly afterwards, Madan received a text message, which she forwarded to another number. The latter sent her a Google page link that reflected ‘enter UPI pin’ and ‘submit’ options.

However, to the shock of the victim, the moment she entered her details, Rs 85,000 was debited from her account through several transactions.She immediately rung up Mishra, but he stopped answering her calls. After scurrying to the restaurant to resolve this, she realised that the number did not belong to the Shiv Sagar restaurant at all.

Realising what might have happened, she reached the Santacruz police and lodged a complaint against two unidentified persons.According to the police, a preliminary investigation suggests that the sim cards used were from West Bengal.

The report noted that the branch of Shiv Sagar restaurant, where the victim tried to reserve a table, said that they were aware of fake numbers being listed in their name, and had approached Google to de-list these fraudulent numbers.What’s worrying is this is not a lone case. Such instances of fraudulent transactions are becoming frequent. Scammers are only having to add their phone numbers to the online contact listings of wine shops, eateries, and banks. Whenever people made calls to these numbers to make queries, the conmen get the opportunity to dupe them under various pretexts, using the similar modus operandi.