A woman who lost Rs 87K to a “lounge app” claims that Bengaluru Airport is not to blame and explains how.
While trying to enter a lounge before to her trip at Bengaluru International Airport, a woman named Bhargavi Mani was recently the victim of a fraud. Ms. Mani revealed in a widely shared video that she was not carrying her actual credit card and showed the lounge employees a picture of it. Pretending to be for security, they instructed her to download an app and perform a facial scan. But it turned out that this was a fraud to obtain her personal data.
Despite downloading the “Lounge Pass” app, Ms. Mani never visited the lounge; instead, she always went to Starbucks for coffee. She first believed it was a network problem when she later discovered she couldn’t receive calls on her phone. But when strangers started returning her calls, she quickly sensed something was amiss.
After looking into it, she discovered that more over ₹ 87,000 had been moved to a Phone Pay account and fraudulently charged to her credit card. She believes the scammers gained access to her phone through the program, redirected calls, and intercepted OTPs for illegal transactions.
Ms. Mani explained in a recent video that she never placed the blame on Bengaluru International Airport or its management. The airport officials have contacted her and are actively helping her with the matter, she added. Since then, she has informed her bank, stopped her card, and reported the event to the cybercrime department.
https://www.youtube.com/live/QL2INzNhXPA?si=tnxCTmDLDvYFLRCM
In a another incidence, 59 people in Hong Kong lost more than ₹ 2 crore after falling for a naked video chat fraud. Police claim that online extortionists used honey-traps to trick the victims into taking off their clothes during video calls. In order to stop the private films from being forwarded to the victims’ families or released online, the scammers used the material to blackmail them, demanding payments totaling more than HK$1.9 million (more than ₹2 crore). The authorities in Hong Kong have warned the public to be on the lookout for these types of frauds.
Another instance of cybercrime occurred when a woman at the Bengaluru international airport fell for a scam and lost more than ₹87,000 while attempting to enter a lounge prior to her trip.
Social media users have started sharing a video of the nameless woman recounting her experience. According to her, the incident happened on September 29. “This scam happened inside the Bengaluru International Airport, to a person using an iPhone, which I regard as scam proof,” a social media user wrote after sharing the video. People, protect your hard-earned money!
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Since she didn’t have her credit cards with her, she used a picture of one to get into the airport lounge. After that, the lounge employees told her to download the “Lounge Pass” app and finish a security facial recognition test. She took these actions, and when she checked her credit card bill later, she was surprised to see the fraud.
The woman claimed that even though she downloaded the app, she never used the lounge, choosing instead to get coffee at Starbucks prior to her trip.
Friends started informing her they couldn’t call her a few days after the trip. She initially blamed this on persistent problems with her Airtel service, which she had been dealing with for several months. However, she rejected it at the time because of personal issues, but when someone indicated that a male had been returning her calls, alarm bells started to sound.
An airport lounge fraud in Bengaluru costs a woman Rs 87,000. This is what took place.
When she saw over ₹87,000 in fraudulent charges on her credit card that were moved to a PhonePe account, things took a terrible turn. According to her suspicions, the scammers used the app to gain access to her phone, enabling them to intercept one-time passwords (OTPs) and set up call forwarding in order to carry out the illegal transactions.
The woman has since reported the incident to the cybercrime department, alerted her bank and blocked her credit card to prevent further losses.
There have been increasing instances of cybercrimes happening in Bengaluru, especially those involving courier firms and digital arrests.
When Bhargavi Mani tried to enter the airport lounge before to her trip at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, she was defrauded of more than Rs 87,000 in a complex scam. Following the September 29 event, Mani shared her story in a social media video that has gone viral, alerting people to the risks of financial theft in public areas, according to Indian Express.
Mani claims that when she attempted to access the airport lounge without her actual credit card, the scam started. After presenting a picture of her card to the lounge employees, she was instructed to download the “Lounge Pass” app and finish a face recognition test, purportedly for security reasons. Trusting the instructions, she complied, but this, she claims, gave
