Chennai: A Chennai-based woman recently became a victim of a lounge scam at Bengaluru International Airport. Bhargavi Mani was trying to access a lounge before her flight. She didn’t have her physical credit card. and showed the staff a photo of it. The staff directed her to download an app and complete a facial scan using screen sharing, supposedly for security purposes. However, this turned out to be a scam.
Mani downloaded the “Lounge Pass” app but didn’t use the lounge. Instead, she went to Starbucks for coffee. Her friends later told her that they were unable to reach her. At first, she thought it was a network problem. When someone told her that her phone was being answered by a man, she dismissed it as she was going through some personal issue.
Lounge scam
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Bengaluru Airport Lounge scam
When Mani saw her credit card bills, she knew something was wrong and started to investigate. She said that over Rs 87,000 had been stolen from her credit card and transferred to a PhonePay account. She suspects the scammers used the Lounge Pass app to access her phone, intercept OTPs and make fraudulent transactions.
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Lounge app scam
Mani said that the scammers apparently delete the OTPs from her phone and switched on the call forwarding option when she shared her phone screen.
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Mani explained that she hadn’t carried her credit card because she was attending a residential NLP program and had only packed the essentials. She didn’t anticipate needing to cover any expenses and primarily relies on Google Pay for most transactions. Aside from her government ID cards, she didn’t carry any bank or financial cards with her.
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She said, “The Lounge Pass app is well-known outside India, and seeing a “.in” version ranked at the top of Google made it seem authentic. I even asked the lounge staff if it was the app they were referring to, and they confirmed—likely assuming, in good faith, that it was legitimate.”
In a new video, Mani clarified that she didn’t blame Bengaluru International Airport or its authorities. The airport authorities have since contacted her and are helping resolve the issue. She has reported the case to cybercrime, informed her bank and blocked her card.
