Trickster cons vehicle buyer on online portal

Beware of frauds lurking on e-commerce portals, including the prominent ones that sell pre-owned cars.

A conman, in the guise of a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) official, made away with Rs 80,000 on Google Pay from a 35-year-old man who expressed interest in buying a pre-owned hatchback for Rs 3,20,000.

Gavaskar (name changed), a resident of A Narayanapura, browsed through the cars available on CarDekho and zeroed in on a Hyundai i-20 Sportz. He called up the owner, one Raghvendra, a CISF official.

Raghvendra sent his CISF ID card, Aadhaar card and vehicle documents on WhatsApp to convince Gavaskar that he was the owner of the vehicle parked at the airport's parking.

Believing Raghvendra, Gavaskar told him that he wanted to see the car. Raghvendra then asked him to pay a token advance and also said that Gavaskar has to bear the expenses for the parking charges at the airport to which he obliged.

Raghvendra maintained that there were many other customers in line who were interested and waiting to see the car, and claimed that he had to send the car to them as well.

Raghvendra asked Gavaskar to send money through Google Pay to a phone number which Gavaskar promptly did believing the car would arrive soon. He transferred Rs 79,110 through Google Pay, but the car never came.

When Raghvendra demanded more money, Gavaskar and his sister turned suspicious. They checked Raghvendra’s phone number on the internet and found out they were cheated.

They were not the only ones. Several victims had posted the same ID card of Raghvendra alias Srikanth, a fraudster.

Gavaskar and his sister rushed to the Mahadevapura police station and filed a complaint. Police are yet to identify and arrest the culprit.