KBC Lottery Scam Warning
March 28th 2019 12:18
A housewife from Bandlaguda has lost Rs 14.83 lakh in a lottery scam that seems to be targetting women or retirees. The victim received a phone call claiming to be from the organisers of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), during which she was informed of a lottery prize win, to the value of Rs 8 crore. The housewife was then asked to pay a processing fee, GST, a fee to the Royal Bank of India and a challan fee in order to receive this money. She duly did so, transferring separate amounts of cash to 35 different bank accounts, and only went to the police when the money that she had ‘won’ failed to materialise. She never heard from the fraudsters ever again.
In a separate case, a frequent buyer on ShopClues.com was conned out of Rs 2.19 lakh. The victim was contacted and told that he had won an SUV worth Rs 12.49 lakh, and could claim the car or the car’s value as cash. “The caller told me about the purchases and order details I made. I believed him that he was calling from ShopClues,” said the man. Unfortunately, the same thing happened with him as did with the housewife, and he was conned into paying a number of charges and payments and didn’t receive any prize money or SUV. According to Ishaan Sinha, director and investigator at cybercrime company BlakTronics Investigation Labs: “It is a huge scam. There is a suspicion that some of the former employees of the shopping portal have put up details of customers on the darknet. These lottery frauds are seeing a spurt across the country."
Global Lotteries
A few weeks ago the EuroMillions jackpot of €71 million was won by a British man, and this week it is the turn of the Powerball, as the jackpot of $768.4 million was won on Wednesday 27th March by a single ticket holder! That means that the next Powerball draw on Sunday will be for at least $40 million. The Mega Millions jackpot flies ahead to $75 million for the draw on Friday, while the EuroMillions gathers pace to €50 million and the UK jackpot grows to £7.6 million.
Written by Chris Brown