A vegetable vendor in Karnataka was saved from losing money to an act of cyber fraud by the timely intervention of a gram panchayat member.
According to reports, a man impersonating an army officer had contacted a vegetable vendor for the supply of vegetables to an alleged army camp. The man, who identified himself as Aman, called the vendor and told him that an army camp had been organized five kms from Uppinangady in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district. He asked the vendor whether he could supply vegetables for the camp on a daily basis, and when the vendor agreed sent him a list of groceries.
The caller told the vendor that he would send a vehicle to collect the vegetables and that payment for the same would be done via bank transfer, for which he sought the vendor’s bank account details.
The vendor obliged and shared the details, when the man called him again asking him to share an OTP that the vendor had received on his mobile phone.
As the vendor was just about to share the OTP and thus possibly lose his life’s savings, an alert member of the Uppinangady Gram Panchayat noticed it and stopped the vendor from sharing the OTP.
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