A 35-year-old man working at a senior position in a private company had fallen prey to the gift card fraud. He had received a WhatsApp message from a person impersonating as the director of the company where he worked. The fraudster asked the aggrieved to urgently send 20 e-gift cards worth Rs5,000 each in order to give them to a client. He managed to send five e-gift cards to the fraudster and later found out that he had been duped.
Conman posed as victim's employer, asked to purchase 20 e-gift cards
According to the Sahar police, the complainant works in an electrical services company at Andheri. On January 7, the man received a missed call from an unknown mobile number followed by a message and the person identified himself as his employer. The two then communicated on WhatsApp and the imposter told the man that he was in a meeting and asked the latter to purchase 20 e-gift cards of Rs5,000 each for a client. The fraudster even assured the man that he would reimburse his money spent on buying the cards. He then purchased five e-gift cards and sent them to the imposter.
Victim realised he had been conned after confirming from real employer
Subsequently, when he called on the number used by the imposter, the latter disconnected the call and sent a message saying he was in a meeting. The aggrieved then called on the number of his real employer and was shocked to know that his boss hadn't asked for any gift voucher.
Realised that he had been duped, the man lodged a police complaint. A case has been registered under the sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act pertaining to cheating by personation, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, identity theft and cheating by personation by using computer resources.
Several recent cases of cons involving e-gift cards: Police
According to the police, in recent times there have been several cases wherein people had been receiving WhatsApp messages from an unknown number, which had the display picture of their employers or someone known to them, asking to send e-gift cards.
Last year, the Maharashtra Cyber Department had issued an advisory warning citizens against the gift card scam. Helping citizens to spot such a fraud, the police had also informed that e-gift cards are sent as gifts and someone can't demand them to make payments.
