Gorkha. At four o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, he received a call on his mobile from a new number. She picked up the phone.

The person who called said, ‘I am speaking from NMB Bank, your account is old and needs to be renewed, please tell me the account number.’

The woman from Patechaur, Gorkha Municipality-6 gave her account number easily thinking it was the bank’s phone.

After getting the account number, the caller said, ‘You will receive an OTP code on your mobile, send that number.’

After some time, the woman received an ‘OTP code’ on her mobile phone and she sent that code to the person who sent the SMS and called her. But the number showed busy.

Then she called the official number of the bank and informed that she has sent the code number.

When the confused bank worker asked why, she got frightened. By that time, 1 lakh 3 thousand 980 rupees in her account had disappeared.

“I went to the bank as soon as I got a call from the bank man,” she said, “When I got to the bank, I saw that all the money in my account had been withdrawn.”

She said that her money was transferred from NMB Bank to Global IME Bank through Nepal Investment Mega, Prabhu. According to him, the amount has now been put on hold.

She has also lodged a complaint with the police saying that her bank account was hacked and money was withdrawn.

Not only her, but also a man from Ajirkot Rural Municipality-3 Lapsibot has been cheated in this way. After calling the bank and asking for the account number, he sent it. He also did the same when asked to send the code that came to the mobile saying that the account did not match. Within a few moments, all the money in his account was gone. “Just a while ago, I went to the bank and withdrew some money from the account,” he said.

He informed that 26 thousand 950 rupees in the account were missing. When he realized that the money was missing, he called the bank. He came to know that the amount was transferred to Jyoti Bikas Bank and lodged a complaint with the police.

He is confused as to how the account was hacked with the code, even though he does not use mobile apps and only transacts through cheques.

He says that he was reminded that giving the OTP code at the bank is equivalent to giving a signature on a blank cheque.

A complaint has been received from the district police office of Gorkhamachar that the account was hacked and the money was withdrawn. DSP Ramesh Kumar Shrestha said that two complaints were received from Gorkha Municipality and one each from Bhimsen Thapa and Ajirkot Rural Municipality. He has also urged people to be vigilant as such incidents are increasing.

“It has been found that they pretend to call from the bank and first ask for the account number, then they send the code to the mobile phone, and then they withdraw all the money from the account after receiving the code. Be careful if someone calls like this,” DSP Shrestha said. He informed that necessary investigation is being done on the incident.