Netflix Fraud: Elderly Mumbai Man Trying to Renew Subscription Duped Out of Rs. 1.22 Lakh

Netflix, one of the most used OTT platforms, has recently been used to dupe an elderly man in Maharashtra. A resident of Mumbai recently lost Rs. 1.22 lakh in an incident of fraud while he was trying to renew his Netflix subscription. The incident was reported by the 73-year-old victim at Mumbai's Juhu police station. As per the police records, the man received an email, which appeared to have been autogenerated by Netflix, reminding the user to renew streaming subscription for the monthly price of Rs. 499. This led him to click on the link that was attached in the mail.

The link required the unnamed victim to fill-in his credit card details to facilitate the transaction and renew his Netflix account which he provided immediately.

“A One Time Password (OTP) was generated on his mobile phone for payment of Rs 1.22 lakh. He entered the OTP without noticing the amount and soon after, the amount was debited from his account,” an Indian Express report quoted a police official familiar with the matter as saying.

Time and again, cyber security experts, banks, as well as law enforcement agencies have warned people against sharing their account-related OTPs on calls with strangers.

In this case, the victim did not realise that he was being scammed until an automated bank call asked him to confirm and verify if the transaction was made by him.

India's National Cybercrime Reporting Portal saw a rise of 15.3 percent in reported complaints during the second quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2022. The findings were published by the Ministry of Home Affairs in October this year.

Considering the rise in cyber-crimes, Indian authorities have been taking active steps to clamp down such instances.

Back in October, the Enforcement Directorate launched a money laundering probe into a mobile app named Keepsharer, which was being run by some Chinese persons.

After raiding on multiple facilities, the ED had seized funds worth Rs 5.85 crore.

In order to safeguard Indians from financial risks linked to the crypto sector, the ED has also been tightening noose around the operations of crypto exchanges, functioning in the nation.