Kolkata: Have you ever ordered food online and not been satisfied with the manner of delivery? Then, have you spoken to an executive at their customer care centre? If yes, chances are there that you have been tricked as most of the food delivery apps do not have a call-in facility. Citing multiple complaints from several customers – about a dozen now per month – the detective department has launched a probe into the crimes where fraudsters are calling up disgruntled customers posing as customer care executives of food delivery giants and then tricking them to get their personal banking details.
Cops said in the latest case, senior IPS officers were tagged by a duped woman. “There are a dozen such cases each month, mostly involving gangs from Jharkhand,” said joint CP Murlidhar Sharma.
According to sources in the bank fraud and cyber cells of the detective department, the crooks use two methods of fraud. In the first one, as reported recently, a woman in south Kolkata had ordered food online. The delivery boy had apparently gone to a wrong address and the woman was forced to cancel her order. As the woman took to social media to vent her anger, she received a call from “an executive from the customer care” who asked her for several details of her bank accounts so that he would return the money to her.
“The woman typed a couple of entries before she realized that she was being tricked. By then, she had lost Rs 8,000,” said Sharma. The second modus operandi is even simpler. The gang manages to put their fake customer care numbers on top of Google searches from search engine optimization. Thus, several people call up the crooks, thinking that they are connecting with the real executives of online food delivery companies. Once the call goes through, the accused use the same methods to siphon off money.
The modus operandi, said sources, is new in Kolkata but had hit Bengaluru and Gurugram earlier. In one such case, a major food aggregator had told police that they don’t have a customer care number and that they redress complaints through a chat service available on the application. Alternatively, a customer can write a message to the company on its official website. In a similar case, when a Jadavpur-based IT professional had called the Google search number, he was told that the refund amount could be transferred immediately via an UPI and that he would have to download a mobile application named ‘Any Desk’. On following the steps dictated by the voice on phone, all money got debited from his bank account.
One such company, which is headquartered in Gurugram, had approached the cyber police station in the city to file a case against the fraudsters on July 25. After preliminary investigation, a case was registered. “Bogus/fake websites and contact numbers are being used by criminals to impersonate us and deceive people. Such fake customer care websites pose a threat to the public as well as to the business that is at a risk of losing customers due to lack of faith in the use of the genuine website/mobile application amidst the bogus ones,” a company representative said in the complaint.
Cops said in the latest case, senior IPS officers were tagged by a duped woman. “There are a dozen such cases each month, mostly involving gangs from Jharkhand,” said joint CP Murlidhar Sharma.
According to sources in the bank fraud and cyber cells of the detective department, the crooks use two methods of fraud. In the first one, as reported recently, a woman in south Kolkata had ordered food online. The delivery boy had apparently gone to a wrong address and the woman was forced to cancel her order. As the woman took to social media to vent her anger, she received a call from “an executive from the customer care” who asked her for several details of her bank accounts so that he would return the money to her.
“The woman typed a couple of entries before she realized that she was being tricked. By then, she had lost Rs 8,000,” said Sharma. The second modus operandi is even simpler. The gang manages to put their fake customer care numbers on top of Google searches from search engine optimization. Thus, several people call up the crooks, thinking that they are connecting with the real executives of online food delivery companies. Once the call goes through, the accused use the same methods to siphon off money.
The modus operandi, said sources, is new in Kolkata but had hit Bengaluru and Gurugram earlier. In one such case, a major food aggregator had told police that they don’t have a customer care number and that they redress complaints through a chat service available on the application. Alternatively, a customer can write a message to the company on its official website. In a similar case, when a Jadavpur-based IT professional had called the Google search number, he was told that the refund amount could be transferred immediately via an UPI and that he would have to download a mobile application named ‘Any Desk’. On following the steps dictated by the voice on phone, all money got debited from his bank account.
One such company, which is headquartered in Gurugram, had approached the cyber police station in the city to file a case against the fraudsters on July 25. After preliminary investigation, a case was registered. “Bogus/fake websites and contact numbers are being used by criminals to impersonate us and deceive people. Such fake customer care websites pose a threat to the public as well as to the business that is at a risk of losing customers due to lack of faith in the use of the genuine website/mobile application amidst the bogus ones,” a company representative said in the complaint.