One loses 1.39L, another 36k in buying liquor online in Odisha
Bhubaneswar: After the introduction of home delivery of liquor through food aggregators and WhatsApp in states, cyber crooks are out to take tipplers for a ride. Two men, one in Bhubaneswar and the other one in Cuttack district, saw fraudulent withdrawal of money from their accounts after they placed their order for liquor on separate malicious websites.
B P Rautray, a businessman, was allegedly duped of Rs 1.39 lakh when he tried to buy liquor from a fake e-commerce portal. He chanced upon this site after doing a quick Google search for liquor shops that offered home delivery of whiskey in the city. Following the incident, he lodged a complaint with Mancheswar police here on Monday.
“The name of a reputed wine shop on Cuttack Road popped up on my computer screen. A phone number was on display. I called the number. The man asked me to pay Rs 200 advance on PhonePe. I paid the advance. The person sent a barcode link on my number and asked me to confirm the order by clicking on the link. The moment I clicked on it, I received a series of messages from the bank about the withdrawal of Rs 1.39 lakh from my account,” Rautray said.
Police said they are investigating the case. “We are trying to identify the people behind this. We have been repeatedly requesting buyers to verify the credentials of e-commerce portals and service providers before paying money. People should not entertain malicious websites,” additional commissioner of police Anup Kumar Sahoo said. A police source said some other liquor buyers were cheated in a similar fashion in the city in the recent past.
In a similar incident, a man in Cuttack was allegedly duped of Rs 36,000 after he placed an order for liquor to be delivered at his doorstep. Rajendra Sahoo lodged a complaint with Niali police in Cuttack on Monday saying that he paid Rs 950 in advance to a website to purchase liquor, following which he received a barcode link on his number. The moment he clicked on it, Rs 36,000 was debited from his account. The cyber criminals adopted the same modus operandi to cheat Sahoo as they had done to cheat Rautray in Bhubaneswar. “I was shocked when I received a message of debit of Rs 36,000 from my account,” Sahoo said.
Recently, the state Crime Branch had issued a public advisory warning people against dubious online platforms that have were giving coronavirus offers on different products.