Odisha doctor duped over hotel booking in Puri, cautions against dialling numbers found on Google

A lady doctor in Berhampur, Sucharita Sahu was duped of Rs 9,000 by cyber frauds after she tried to book a hotel room in Puri on Friday.

As per reports, she browsed for hotels in Puri and zeroed in on a particular hotel near the Blue Flag beach. She dialed the contact number provided by the search engine and the persons on the other side asked her to pay Rs 9,000 as an advance payment for booking.

Accordingly, Sahu transferred the money to the account number provided by the man without any delay as she wanted to give a treat to her father on his birthday. However, the man did not respond for long after payment. And when Sahu insisted, the fraudster who identified himself as an employee of the hotel used foul language to shut her up.

Sahu took to Twitter to caution people against such frauds and wrote, “So yesterday I tried to make a booking on Golden Palace Hotel, Puri on their google account. They have a number which is fraud. He took my money of 9k and again insisted me to make a payment of 30k.”

Sahu alleged that the fraudster claimed that some hotel employees are also involved in this racket.

“Hotel has mentioned about some fraud numbers on their official booking site only. But I want to ask, how did frauds get access to your hotel’s web site featured on Google? And guess what the guy who took my money and after a huge argument he revealed that hotel is involved in this with them,” Sahu tweeted.

Speaking to OTV, Sahu said, “I checked the IFSC of the account number the fraudster had sent to me, and it turned out to be from a bank in Puri. So, I believed him and sent the money.”

“Rs 9000 is not an issue here. I wanted to highlight the issue so that no other gullible person falls prey to such kind of fraud,” she added.

(Reported By Ashok Brahma, OTV)