Bhubaneswar: An attempt to sell a cow online proved costly for a youth of Bharatpur, on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
The victim of the alleged online fraud, Debasish Sahoo, lodged a complaint in this regard at Bharatpur police station on March 12.
According to the complainant, he had put up an ad on the digital marketplace, Krishify, to sell his cow on March 11. He received a call at around 8 pm the same day from a mobile number- 8342017297.
Identifying himself as Manjit, the caller said that he worked with the Indian Army and his family stayed at Baramunda. He expressed willingness to buy the cow and the deal was finalized at Rs 20,000. He told Sahoo that he would pay Rs 10,000 online and the rest of the amount while taking the cow.
The caller told him that he was not allowed to install PhonePe app on his phone and would, therefore, send a QR scan code for Rs 20,000.
Initially, he sent him a QR scan code for Rs 5 and the amount was credited to his account when he scanned it on his smartphone.
“The second scan code was for Rs 20,000. As I scanned the code, Rs 20,000 was debited from my bank account. When I told the caller about it, he attributed it to some technical glitch and asked me to scan the code again. In a similar manner, Rs 20,000 got debited from the account five times and I lost a total of Rs 1 lakh,” the complainant added.
