Mumbai: Man Loses ₹11.5L In Food Chain Franchise Fraud

A 22-year-old man has fallen prey to scammers and lost Rs 11.50 lakh after he was promised franchise of a multinational food chain.According to the police, the victim is a resident of Jalgaon and is into grocery business. On April 24, when the victim was going through his Facebook account, he came across an advertisement about the franchise of a food chain.

The victim clicked on the said advertisement and filled a form asking details about name, email ID, mobile number of the applicant. The victim also sent his Aadhar card, Pan card and academic details over an email ID provided by the scammers.

Two days later, the victim received a phone call asking if the victim had applied for a franchise of a food chain. Once the victim replied in positive, the scammers shared a registration form with him.

The victim then filled his name, address and bank account details in the said form along with a self attested photograph. On May 02, the victim received a phone call from a person claiming to be a representative of the food chain company.

The scammer then told the victim that his application had been selected after which the victim was induced to pay Rs 11.50 lakh through online transactions. On May 05, when the victim was told to pay more Rs 23.60 lakh for franchise license, the victim got suspicious and made further inquiries with the company officials and learnt that he had been cheated.

The victim then approached the police and provided details of the contact number, fraudulent transaction details and bogus email address used by the scammers to dupe the victim, to the police.

The police has registered a case last week under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using genuine a forged) of the Indian Penal Code and section 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.