Fraudsters dupe gullible youngsters through online in Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam: Vizag, the cyber crime capital in Andhra Pradesh is now witnessing new type of cases.

The tech savvy cyber criminals are duping gullible people with new scams by putting up advertisements of used cars, high-end mobile phones, modern bikes and few others on the popular online classified website olx.com pretending to be NRIs wanting to sell the goods before leaving the country.

Cops of Cyber Crime Investigation Cell (CCIC) said that the fraudsters upload the images of images of some vehicles, high end phones etc on the Olx site for sale.

When a buyer expresses curiosity, the criminals claim that the vehicle is with the customs department at Vizag airport, awaiting clearances and convince the interested persons that it would take a few lakhs for clearance charges.

Once the interested buyer pays up through online banking or some other channel, the impostors switch off their mobile phone and go on to target the next gullible person.

Inspector of CCIC, K. Satyanarayana Rao said that educated youngsters and few others were the victims in this new trend of crimes. Sometimes the victims hesitate to lodge police complaints as citing their identity may expose them.

An engineering student of a private college in Vizag city was duped to the tune of Rs 1.25 lakh after the fraudster promised to sell a Hyundai Verna car at Rs 4 lakh only. Our teams have been investigating the cases but yet to get any concrete clue to nab the fraudsters, he added.

Sources in the police said that Vizagites have been approaching the police  as they received calls from New Delhi about cases being  registered in their names at various consumer courts and asking them to  attend the cases in person or pay some money to adjourn the case.  

Fortunately, so far no one has fallen for such calls and also has been taking advice of the police.