In a new online scam, a woman’s Swiggy account was hacked and the scammers placed orders worth Rs 97,000 using her account. The two cyber criminals are now arrested but here is how the scam unfolded.
As per a report by The New Indian Express, Aniket Kalra, who is 25 years old, and Himanshu Kumar, who is 23 years old, tricked a 26-year-old woman into giving them almost Rs 1 lakh via her Swiggy account. The woman informed the police that some strangers took her money from her Lazy Pay account, which was connected to Swiggy. She lost Rs 97,197. The police started investigating after she told them what happened.
The hackers tricked the woman by using a special phone system called IVR (Interactive Voice Response). They made a fake call to her late at night. The call sounded like it was from Swiggy's official system. It told her that someone was trying to access her Swiggy account. This was a lie, but it made the woman worried and confused.
The fake call was designed to make her think her account was in danger. So, to protect it, the fake system asked her to provide some information. Sadly, the woman fell for the trick and gave away her private details like her username, password, or maybe even her bank information.
Once they had this information, the hackers could easily log in to her Swiggy account. They used it to make online orders worth a lot of money without her permission. This is how they managed to steal nearly Rs 1 lakh from her Lazy Pay account, which was linked to Swiggy.
One of the accused, Kalra, told the news publication that he worked as a delivery boy for Zomato and Swiggy. He also shared that he began buying groceries online at discounted rates and reselling them for profit, saving around 5-10 per cent. Later, he met Ansh from Punjab on Telegram, and they teamed up to cheat people.
Ansh had access to data of people who linked their credit cards, debit cards, or internet banking to their Swiggy accounts. They targeted these people by tricking them with fake phone calls. These calls, made with pre-recorded messages, claimed to be from Swiggy's official system, warning the victims of account breaches. The victims, fearing for their accounts, unknowingly provided their private information. This allowed the hackers to access their Swiggy accounts and steal confidential data.
