Man arrested for cheating people through fake grocery website

Hyderabad: The Raidurgam Police here arrested a man for allegedly cheating people through cyber fraud by developing fake grocery and furniture websites (www.zopnow.in) under the pretext of selling the same at a price cheaper than the market price thereby defrauding his customers.

On April 28, the police received a complaint from a software engineer who claimed that he had availed the services of a website called www.zopnow.in to order groceries and ended up paying Rs 1544 for the same. Post the transaction, the complainant didn’t receive any confirmation from the website. Neither did he receive any response when he contacted the customer care number found on the website.

The main accused Rishabh Upadhyay(30) used his prior knowledge of business and web developing to defraud customers. He first created fake Skype accounts under pseudonyms to contact job aspirants. He teamed up with the co-accused, one Rahul (who is still absconding), and assured them that he would provide onsite job visas to them and asked them to set up new bank accounts.

He also collected their credentials and internet banking kits of the victims under the guise of “Indus Global Law Firm” through DTDC courier. The pandemic aided the accused’s business as people across the country including nine victims from under the Cyberabad Commissionerate lost money to these websites. The Raidurgam police arrested Upadhyay at Bangalore and seized his possessions.

The Cyberabad commissioner of police, VC Sajjanar, has issued an advisory to the public to not fall prey to dubious websites and to report any suspicious activity to the cyber crime police station.