A 15-year-old schoolboy, residing in Nalasopara in Palghar district of Mumbai fell prey to a Kaun Banega Crorepati fake call and was duped of Rs 3 lakhs. A case of cheating has been registered at Nalasopara police station.
The victim, Manish Jha, originally hailing from Darbhanga in Bihar was on his way to his relative’s house in Nalasopara with his mother when he received the first call on August 1. The caller claimed to be a part of the popular game show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’, a popular TV show on Sony Entertainment Television hosted by Indian film industry superstar, Amitabh Bachchan.
He told Jha that he had won Rs 25 lakh in a lucky draw and asked him to deposit a processing fee of Rs 20,000 in a bank account. The teenager could not contain himself and convinced his mother to deposit the money, said a police officer.
After the amount was deposited, Jha received another call from the same number and the ‘KBC representative’ told him to deposit another Rs 2.8 lakh. Jha once again convinced his mother to give the money.
However, after not receiving the cash reward for the next one month, Jha and his mother got worried. On September 1, Jha called the number from which he had received the call, but it was unreachable. Jha and his mother realized that they had been conned and approached the Nalasopara police.
The police are examining the details of the bank account in which the Jhas had deposited the money in an attempt to get some lead in the case.
This is not the first instance where a viewer has fallen prey to a ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ scam. Last year too, a car mechanic from Bengaluru lost over Rs 1 lakh to a ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ scam over a period of 10 days after he deposited the money into multiple bank accounts handled by fraudsters. He too was duped by a caller who claimed of being a KBC representative and convinced the mechanic that he had won Rs 35 lakh in a lucky draw.
During the show the host Amitabh Bachchan regularly urges the viewers to not pay any money for the show, saying that the show does not require any deposit to be made to participate or to win prize money. But still some people fall prey to such scams.