Art director tries to cancel rail ticket through railway ‘helpline’ number, loses Rs 2.19 lakh

A 48-year-old man from south Mumbai looking to cancel a train ticket ended up losing Rs 2.19 lakh after a Google search led him to fraudsters instead of the Indian Railways.

An FIR was registered on December 9 at the VP Road police station. The complainant, an art director by profession who works with an advertising agency at Fort, said, on December 2, he booked two tickets for his wife and himself through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website for Pune.

The police said, “After his wife fell ill, he decided to cancel her ticket and searched for a railway helpline number on Google and ended up getting a fraudulent number uploaded by cyber fraudsters.”