E- tailers make most of festive purchases

The e-commerce sites are doing brisk business during the festival season compared to traditional business unlike in the past in the Adilabad district of Telangana.     

Popular e- commerce sites which Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, Paytm etc. offers attractive discounts during the festival season. Many people stick to their smartphones, laptops and desktops for online shopping instead of visiting local showrooms to purchase items.  

These days, the reach of e-commerce sites is growing and even in rural areas people are purchasing online with the increased internet connectivity. The advertisements being published in news papers and Television channels attracts many people with special offers including cash back.

Alke Ashok of Adilabad who recently purchased shoes online said ‘online shopping gives wide choice to customer to go through many varieties with different quality and cost and it was up to the customers to select the products unlike in traditional set up’.

It is observed that, even in rural areas people as a group placing orders online shopping sites for items which are within their budget.

More people are joining the bandwagon with the confidence that they too can purchase items online on seeing their kin and friends.

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. 

Online cheating of shoppers rises

Online shopping has come in handy for the online fraudsters to cheat the gullible people.

The incidents of online frauds are on the rise in the district. The fraudsters are cheating the gullible people having ATM cards by calling the people posing themselves as bank staff and wanted to clarify their pin number once.

Fraudsters are purchasing various products through online shopping at various prominent sites using the money available in the bank accounts with the ATM in numbers collected by cheating the bank account holders.

There was no mechanism to cross check whether the account holder who was paying money for his shopping was genuine card holder or not.

Unknown persons calling the bank account holders by introducing themselves as ATM servicemen and asking to renew their ATM otherwise it will be blocked soon due to technical problems and asking the details about their Aadhar card and ATM number to renew ATM card.

ATM account holders were asked to tell the number mentioned in the message they will receive and the amount in the bank account will be deducted and victim will receive message to this effect from the bank within no time.

Card holders will realize that they were cheated only on seeing the message they received from the bank stating that he or she was successfully purchased the items or products with the online payment using their ATM.

Vemula Rajaguruvaiah of Itikyala village in Luxettipet mandal was cheated for Rs 22,999 from his SBH bank account of Luxettipet lodged a complaint with the local police stating that an unknown person who collected details of his bank ATM card had purchased one item from online shopping site ‘Flipkart’.

‘One unknown person called with the phone number 9507206057 and introduced himself as Rahul Sharma who spoke in Hindi and asked him to renew ATM card on August18 and cheated me’, Rajaguruvaiah lamented.

One can find posters pasted in the RTC buses and stations offering online ‘relief’ services to the people those were facing problems. One woman of Mancherial was cheated for huge money in the name of offering relief to her family problems few months ago by online Baba.

Unknown persons have been calling the people saying that they were selected for a lottery or gold and asking the bank details to deposit on their names or send them to their addresses. Sometimes, asking to deposit some money to get the money or gold they got in the lottery.