Page 49 - Seniorstoday October 2023 Issue

of blindside, she transferred that amount best and it was reassuring indeed to Navya.
too. Immediately after that, she realised
that something was amiss and sent a WA
message to her friend SKM to check the
veracity, who confirmed her worst fears
that it was not he and that she had been
scammed. Apparently, his mail had been
hacked into a year ago and his best efforts
with the police could not help him with
anything tangible.
A distraught Navya had reached out to
her friend, a senior functionary at IIB,
debriefed him with a request to have the
fraudulent account blocked, who in turn
promised to have it looked into through his
banks’ cyber fraud cell , while cautioning
that fraudsters normally empty out the
account immediately. She also lodged a
complaint with her own bank, HDFB, who
took down her complaint and assured
to do what is possible. She also rang up
1930, a cyber-fraud cell set up by GoI, and
after several attempts got through finally
at noon and reported the details of the
fraudulent transactions. The lady on the
phone was exceptionally patient and took
down all the details and simultaneously
logged in the complaint on the portal.
As she was speaking to her, Navya got a
message on her mobile phone confirming
the lodgement of her complaint. That was
a super-efficient government system at its
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #52 | OCTOBER 2023
Navya, as a practical person, had taken
all the necessary post-fraud steps in an
attempt to recover her hard earned money.
At the same time, given her spiritual
orientation, she had also kept her faith in
the cosmos and made the rounds of the
temples and prayed for divine intervention.
Her belief was that she had led a straight
and honest life and hence should not be
subject to any fraudulent extractions from
her savings. It had happened to her once
in the past too and had lost significant
monies to a con man, but she could not do
much about it or recover it. But she was
compensated for her loss through some
windfall gains in the stock market. It
vindicated her belief that what goes around
comes around. She was quite sure that
the con man too would get his just deserts
someday soon for having cheated her.
Navya had to bear the brunt of the barbs
of her two computer science techie sons for
being so gullible and naïve and becoming
a victim a second time around. She also got
a lecture on the mad bad world out there
and was chided for being so trusting when
the modern world is anything but that. She
had no response except to agree sheepishly
that she would be careful in the future.
Vijay was bewildered, but thankful that
he stays miles away from tech and gizmos.
It was all simple for him, knowing fully
well that Navya is there to help him for
app shopping or app rides or app banking
or app whatever. Of course, Vijay was
nevertheless a know-all and had a penchant
for rubbing Navya the wrong way at the
most inappropriate moments and getting
her back up. A great armchair critic in
Vijay, if ever there was one. C’est la vie!
Navya continued with her life as usual,
rueing her gullibility and consequent loss,
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