Fraudster dupes cybercrime lawyer, sells fake car insurance policy

Fiftyyearold 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 rateThe whole transaction was done in such a clever manner that 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 correctedIn 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 PTIBased on his complaint an FIR was lodged at Mandir Marg cyber police station on April 21The telecaller identified herself as a representative of Policybazarcom and had prior information of the expiry of Sonis car insurance After initial discussion on the phone the woman shifted to WhatsApp messages where the display picture DP resembled the companys logoThey even owned an almost similar domain name carrenewalpolicybazarcom from where they sent emails to Soni and made some lucrative offers with added featuresAware of such frauds Policybazarcom 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 crossverify such claims by writing to feedbackpolicybazaarcomWe do keep educating our customers not to fall prey to impostersiquest a representative from Policybazarcom saidSoni claimed in his complaint The woman sent me the features of the policy from email address supportcarrenewalpolicybazarcom in respect of IFFCO Tokio General Insurance where I was supposed to pay 17700He further said that the woman sent him the bank account details with beneficiary name as policy bazaar along with an account number and IFSC codeI 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 didnt get any message or email either from Policybazarcom or IFFCO Tokio When I tried to call back the woman I didnt get any response Soni saidAlso readMaha 49 people arrested from MiraBhayandar call centre involved in duping Australian nationalsWhen 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 Policybazaarcom as well as IFFCO TOKIO and both said that they didnt have any details of his policySoni alleged that there was a flaw in the online banking system which these fraudsters exploitedI 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 doesnt crosscheck the account holders name in its records while transferring the money Soni saidWhen 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 holders name is incorrect even then the money will get transferred in that particular accountShe added They were aware that Soni would think that he transferred money into Policy Bazars account but actually the money went into some other accountShe further informed that the bank takes only an individuals 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 countryThe police have launched a probe and the account status suggests that they have defrauded more people in a similar fashionThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever