Two arrested for cheating over 500 people through fake shopping portal

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New Delhi: Two men were arrested for allegedly cheating more than 500 people of nearly Rs 80 lakh through their fake shopping portal after luring them with lucrative prize offers from Tughlakabad Extension, police said Sunday. The accused -- Lalit Prasad (25), the owner of the portal along with his manager, Pardeep Kumar (25), ran the fake shopping portal to lure people, they said.

The website looked very authentic and professional as they took great care while designing it. The duo operated from their in-house call centre, based in Tughlakabad Extension, police said. The matter came to light after police received a complaint from one of the victims who alleged that he had been cheated by a group of persons on the pretext of providing free gifts as a promotional offer for their online shopping portal called www.kart4all.com, they said.

According to the complaint, he got a call from an unknown person who claimed that he had won a free gift which can be either a Sony LED TV, an Iphone7 or a Dell laptop and he just needs to purchase any product worth more than Rs 550 from their shopping portal to avail the free gift. To claim the gift, the man purchased a cotton bedsheet worth Rs 649 and chose a Dell laptop as a free gift. The next day, he received a call from the accused demanding Rs 12,600 as GST on the "free gift".

Once he deposited the money, another demand of Rs 27,000 was raised as insurance cost for shipping of the product, which the victim paid, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber), Anyesh Roy said. A few days later, he was informed that there was some technical problem with his laptop due to which it could not be shipped and the company wanted to refund his money, but for that they induced him to deposit Rs 5,000 more. He deposited the said amount in order to save the major sum already given, the officer said. Investigation revealed that more than 500 people had been cheated of Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000.

They have cheated victims of Rs 75-80 lakh approximately, he added. About eight years ago, Prasad started working as a tele-caller in a Delhi-based call centre from where he came to know how to run a call-centre. In order to make easy money, he started the fake online shopping company and cheated hundreds of people from different parts of the country in the name of providing lucrative free gifts for promotion of the portal, the DCP said. Efforts are being made to identify the involvement of others in the scam, police said, adding that further investigation is underway.

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