No mechanism to tackle online fraud at districts

No mechanism was in place to tackle online fraud in the police department at district level except creating awareness among the people how to avoid such frauds in Telangana.

Different kind of online frauds were reported including phone calls including winning lottery, gold and online solutions to various problems, being  selected for rewards and asking the candidates to deposit money as processing fee to claim the lottery or other rewards they won.    

The police department is facing difficulty in bringing the fraudsters to book though their phone numbers and whereabouts were traced out and it was found that most of them are from other states and even from other countries.

In August, Vemula Rajaguruvaiah of Itikyala village in Luxettipet mandal of Adilabad district was cheated for Rs 22,999 from his SBH bank account. He lodged a complaint with the local police stating that on unknown person who collected details of his bank ATM card had purchased one item from online shopping site ‘Flipkart’. On August 18, he received the call which asked for ATM card details on  the pretext on ATM renewal.

On condition anonymity, a police officer said they have to bear more expenditure than the amount involved in actual fraud for sending a police team to bring back the accused to district even if they traced the whereabouts of the persons indulged in online frauds.

‘It would be good to create awareness among the people about online frauds and how to avoid them instead of wasting time and huge money on the investigation', said an officer.

Nearly 10 online frauds were reported and many more were unreported as victims did not want to complaint to the police in the last one year in the Adilabad district.

The online frauds are on the rise since e-commerce has become popular and fraudsters have started using these e-commerce sites as a tool cheating the people by indulging in frauds with purchasing items online. The amount for purchased items was being deducted from the bank accounts of the victims without their knowledge.

In most of the online fraud cases, fraudsters collected details of bank accounts and their ATM pin code posing themselves as bank staff. 

Self styled ‘God man’(Baba) took the ‘online’ mode following the trend among the people and cheated gullible woman in the name of offering ‘online services’ of curing people suffering from various ailments.

Few months ago, a self styled Mirja Baba who claimed as a native of Rajastan has collected Rs 5 lakh in one month from a gullible married woman Madasu Mounika of Narsingapur village in Mancherial mandal to cure her family members suffering from various ailments suspected.