Wrong parcel-tracking app costs Ahmedabad perfumery worker ₹ 1.34 lakh

Ahmedabad: A 20-year-old worker at a perfume shop in the city lost Rs 1.34 lakh after downloading a fraudulent application while trying to track a parcel sent to Kashmir via India Post.

According to a complaint lodged with Dariapur police on Saturday, Fiyyan Shaikh, a resident of Dhalgarwad, was assisting his employer in tracking a perfume consignment that had not reached its destination.

Police said the parcel had been dispatched from the Mirzapur post office on March 16. When the customer reported that the package had not been delivered, Shaikh and his colleagues sought to trace its status. Acting on information purportedly received at the post office, they attempted to download a parcel-tracking application.

Instead of the intended tracking app, a different application was downloaded. Finding the app difficult to understand, Shaikh contacted a helpline number displayed on it. The person who answered, speaking in Hindi, allegedly asked him to call from the mobile number linked to the payment made for dispatching the parcel.

The caller sought Shaikh’s Aadhaar details and later sent an APK file titled 'Customer Support 1.apk' through WhatsApp. After installing the file, Shaikh entered parcel-related details and attempted to make a nominal payment of Rs 5 as instructed.

A few days later, while trying to make a payment through Google Pay, he noticed that transactions were failing. On visiting his bank branch and obtaining a statement, he discovered that multiple unauthorised transactions had been carried out from his account on May 24. The statement showed two debits of nearly Rs 50,000 each, three transactions of Rs 9,999 and another of Rs 5,000, taking the total amount siphoned off to Rs 1.34 lakh.

After reporting the matter to the national Cybercrime helpline, Shaikh approached Dariapur police.