New Delhi: Fifty-year-old lawyer Nitin Soni, who handles cases of cyber fraud, became a victim himself when a woman caller, posing as a representative of a leading online insurance broker, sold him a fake car insurance policy at an attractive rate.
The whole transaction was done in such a manner that Mr Soni did not realise he was dealing with a fake agent. He realised the fraud a few days later when he spotted a spelling error in his name in the policy document and tried to get it corrected.
"In fact, I drove my car for almost a week with a fake insurance policy. It was a spelling mistake in my name which helped me trace the fraud,” Soni told PTI.
Based on his complaint, an FIR was lodged at Mandir Marg cyber police station on April 21.
The telecaller identified herself as a representative of Policybazar.com and had prior information of the expiry of Soni's car insurance. After initial discussion on the phone, the woman shifted to WhatsApp messages where the display picture (DP) resembled the company's logo.
They even owned an almost similar domain name, carrenewalpolicybazar.com, from where they sent emails to Soni and made some lucrative offers with added features.
Aware of such frauds, Policybazar.com has already put up an advisory on its website for the general public where it says that fraudsters can come up with identical fake websites to dupe consumers hence people should always cross-verify such claims by writing to feedback@policybazaar.com.
"We do keep educating our customers not to fall prey to imposters,” a representative from Policybazar.com said.
Soni claimed in his complaint, "The woman sent me the features of the policy from email address support@carrenewalpolicybazar.com in respect of IFFCO Tokio General Insurance where I was supposed to pay 17,700." He further said that the woman sent him the bank account details with beneficiary name as "policy bazaar" along with an account number and IFSC code.
"I transferred the money and received the covering letter of the policy on WhatsApp and I was told that I would get the hard copy very soon. But I didn't get any message or email either from Policybazar.com or IFFCO Tokio. When I tried to call back the woman, I didn't get any response,” Soni said.
When he spotted the spelling error in his name and contacted the number provided in the email, he came to know that the number belonged to some car dealer in Delhi. It raised his suspicion and then he called Policybazaar.com as well as IFFCO TOKIO and both said that they didn't have any details of his policy.
Soni alleged that there was a flaw in the online banking system which these fraudsters exploited.
"I contacted the Indian Post Payment Bank in which I had paid the insurance premium to find out how an account in the name of Policy Bazar was opened. Then I came to know that the account was in the name of Dharmendra Kumar but the online banking system doesn't crosscheck the account holder's name in its records while transferring the money,” Soni said.
When contacted, a representative from the Indian Post Payment Bank further clarified to PTI, “When you are making online money transfers and if you have entered the account number and IFSC code correctly but the account holder's name is incorrect, even then the money will get transferred in that particular account.”
She added, “They were aware that Soni would think that he transferred money into Policy Bazar's account but actually the money went into some other account.” She further informed that the bank takes only an individual's thumb impression for opening an account as his or her details are accessed from Aadhaar data. Indian Post Payment Bank provides only one IFSC code for all its branches across the country.
The police have launched a probe and the account status suggests that they have defrauded more people in a similar fashion.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)