Bhubaneswar: A woman lecturer in Odisha capital here has lost around Rs 4 lakh to cyber fraudsters, who identified themselves as customer care officials of a digital payment platform.

The victim, identified as Usharani Behera of Kaptipada area in Mayurbhanj, has lodged a complaint in this regard with Khandagiri police in the capital city here.

As per the complaint, Usharani, who teaches in a private college in the city here, had encountered certain issues while recharging her phone number through a digital payment platform last month.

She immediately contacted the customer care service of the digital payment platform after getting its number from the internet. However, Usharani was unaware that some cyber fraudsters were talking to her in the guise of customer care officials.

A sum of Rs 99,898 was debited from the bank account of the woman lecturer on October 27 after she acted upon the advice of the fake customer care officials to solve her problems.

The victim contacted the branch manager of the bank the next day and informed him about the incident.

She urged the bank officials to block her account and allow her for withdrawal.

However, the bank officials asked the victim to transfer her money from Recurring Deposit (RD) to Fixed Deposit.

Despite this, the cyber fraudsters managed to withdraw Rs 1 lakh from the victim’s account in two transactions on October 29.

Similarly, the fraudsters debited Rs 1.91 lakh from the woman lecturer’s account in two transactions on October 30.

The victim has urged the police to probe the cyber fraud and take appropriate action in this regard.