Fraudsters get creative, come up with newer ways to dupe people

New Delhi, Aug 27 (IANS) Sending a link on payment apps, passing messages about pending electricity or any other bill, contacting sellers through OLX or other applications and offering loan options at cheaper rates -- these are some of the new ways that fraudsters have adopted in the last few years to cheat people of their hard earned money.

Krishna, a resident of West Delhi, was looking for ways to earn some quick money. He joined a WhatsApp group and came across a post by someone regarding an easy online loan. When Krishna contacted the person on his number, he was given a link to download an app called Ring. He downloaded it.

In the process of verification, he sent his OTP to the person on the other side. He never knew that he was passing the details of his net banking to an unknown person. To his utter shock, he realized of committing a blunder as his back balance reduced to nearly zero in the next few hours.

Similarly, there are pan-India syndicates involved in duping gullible people through fake e-commerce websites of popular electronic or clothes brands. They also have a slew of fake websites with believable URLs such as aggarwalandsons.co.in, hindsolution.co.in, bansaltraders.com, sunsolar.com, and so on. They especially target people who look for branded items at cheaper rates.

Kushal Sharma, a South Delhi resident, was duped by the fraudsters when he wanted to buy an AC. He fell in to the trap of one such fake website and lost Rs 28,472.

He made an advance payment hoping to get the home appliance at a much cheaper price than in the open market, But, that did not happen, he did not receive any delivery. His efforts to contact the seller turned out to be in vain as the given mobile phone number was always switched off.

A unique case of duping people has come to light in Delhi- NCR in which fraudsters target those people who publish advertisements in their colonies about their missing children or missing family members.

Babita (name changed), a resident of Rohini area of north west Delhi, was in shock after her 17-year-old daughter went missing. She lodged a missing complaint in this respect with the police.

A day after registering the complaint, she received a call from an unknown number. The person on the other side informed her that he had found the missing girl and asked her to pay Rs 5,000, or the travel expenses, on his Paytm account.

As expected, the family made the payment, but the missing daughter never came. They came to know that they were trapped by a gang who generally target such needy people looking for help.

Similarly, in OLX or QR code-related frauds, the scammer, posing as an Army / Paramilitary operative, contacts the person who is trying to sell a product on websites or apps such as OLX, Quikr, and so on, and agrees to pay the price asked for the said good.

The fraudster claims that he is posted in some inaccessible area of the country and hence can neither come to take the physical delivery, nor can he pay the money in cash and hence, needs to transfer the money online.

After striking a deal, he then sends a fake screenshot (generated using PayTM Spoof App or similar Apps) to the seller purporting to show that the said amount has been transferred to the seller's PayTM account.

When the seller, however, claims that the money has not been received, the fraudster claims that there is some technical issue and then sends a QR code to the victim.

He guides the victim through the process and makes him/her upload the said screenshot using Google Pay. As soon as the victim uploads the screenshot and enters the UPI pin on Google Pay, the money, instead of being credited, gets debited from the account of the victim.

It doesn't stop here. when the victim brings this up with the fraudster, he claims that this was a mistake and that now he is sending a QR code for twice the amount (to account for the money that has been mistakenly debited from the victim's account) and as soon as the victim scans the QR code, the amount again gets debited from his/her account.

The fraudster repeats this exercise as many times as he can, with the victim and then cuts the connection.

In this way, the victim ends up losing several thousand or even lakhs of rupees while trying to sell a product online on OLX/Quikr, etc.