Mumbai-Based Makeup Artist Loses ₹69,700 While Trying To Buy Wine

By Ritu Sanghvi Updated October 28, 2021 11:39 AM

I enjoy drinking every once in a while. I believe some of the best stories of my life have come out when either I’m drinking or spending on alcohol. Let me tell you one of the stories from the latter part. A friend and I had gone to a Tasmac (wine shop) in Chennai to buy alcohol and upon reaching there we saw that the entire place was surrounded by all these middle-aged men randomly staring at us, needless to say, we got freaked out and ended up paying thrice the price for a quarter of alcohol and walked out of there. Yes, we forgot to take the change and you know what’s the worst part? That was all the money we had for that entire week. So we spent the rest of the week on Maggie and water. Well, this was my anecdote but there are some people who’ve had worse experiences while buying alcohol. Take the example of this makeup artist in Mumbai who lost ₹69,700 while she was trying to buy wine online.

Yep, you heard it right. A 45-year-old, Mumbai-based makeup artist became a victim of cybercrime when she was tricked by a fraudster who pretended to be a wine shop employee and duped her of ₹69,700. The woman later filed an FIR regarding the fraud with the Samta Nagar police station on October 26, 2021.

According to the reports, the woman told the police that she wanted to give her sister a bottle of wine for her birthday, so the she turned to Google and searched for wine shop numbers when she came across the fraudster.

Also Read: Shabana Azmi Gets Cheated By Fraudsters While Ordering Liquor Online, Advises Caution While Doing Online Transactions

The 45-year-old makeup artist claims that she did not know that there were fraudsters who gave their own numbers and passed them off as wine shop numbers on Google. In her case, she came across one such fraudster who asked her to pay ₹1,500 as an advance amount and later on asked her to transfer ₹17,051 as processing fees. Later on, he claimed that the transaction for processing fees had failed and asked her to send the money again.

Once the makeup artist figured that something was wrong, she asked the fraudster to refund the money. The fraudster then sent her a link and asked her to fill in her bank details stating that she needed to click on the link for the refund to go through. The woman followed his instructions and soon enough another transaction was made of ₹34,102. In total, the man had duped her of ₹69,700.

Also Read: This Bengaluru Woman Was Conned Out Of Rs 1.6 Lakh When She Tried To Order Wine Online

The makeup artist who fell victim to cybercrime reminds me of the time when even Shabana Azmi fell victim to it while ordering alcohol. So any of you who are planning to buy alcohol online, either make sure that you pay by cash or order from a known place. Cause, one can never be too cautious, can they?