A 30-year-old man lost his car worth Rs4 lakh and Rs8,000, while trying to transport his four-wheeler from Mumbai to his hometown in Agra. In his complaint lodged at the Nehru Nagar police station, Inderpreet Singh Oberoi said that he works as an assistant manager at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. He wanted to ship his Hyundai i20 to Uttar Pradesh.
On February 15, he made a random Google search about vehicle transport service. However, he didn't get any satisfactory results. By the end of the day, he received a WhatsApp message from a man who introduced himself as Pankaj Yadav. He asked the victim to share the details of his car and the location where the vehicle is to be transported.
Timeline of The Event
Subsequently, the con gave an estimate of Rs 9,000 for the service, which was settled at Rs 8,00 after negotiations, said Oberoi in his police statement. To make the fraud look genuine, Yadav asked him to take transit insurance and provide him with a copy of the same. On April 7, a man wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans came to Oberoi’s location in Chembur.
Posing as an executive of VRL Logistics Pvt Ltd, he told the complainant that he wanted to examine his vehicle to start the transportation process. “He started to take a video of my car and then took it away. Meanwhile, Yadav asked me to send a copy of the transit insurance worth Rs 4 lakh. He also told me to pay Rs 8,000,” said Oberoi.
Two days later, the fraudster sent a 'quotation' worth Rs 40,440. Baffled, the complainant questioned Yadav that he was asking money for what, the latter threatened to forfeit his car if he didn't comply. Oberoi tried to contact VRL Logistics, but he was told that they do not transport vehicles.
“The fraudster managed to gain access to the complainant’s contact number using phishing links which he might have clicked while searching for porter companies,” said a cop.
