Insurance Scam: 6 Arrested By Mumbai Police For Cheating Senior Citizen Of Rs 75 lakhs

NEW DELHI: Six scammers were arrested by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police for doing an online fraud of Rs 75 lakhs with a senior citizen in Mumbai on the pretext of selling insurance policies by leading companies.

A senior citizen filed a complaint against the fraudsters in Mumbai. In his complaint, he mentioned that he was duped by some unknown men of Rs 75 lakhs by imposters pretending to be policy agents of renowned companies like against the HDFCLife insurance policy, Bharti Axa Life, Edelvise, Metlife etc. The money was transferred to various bank accounts by the complainant as advised by the crooks.

The accused have been identified as Harshit Chikara, Prasoon Kumar Sinha, Adnan Khan, Sourabh, Mohit Mittal, and Pankaj Shah.

During the interrogation accused revealed that they were working in a call centre – Shridhar Insurance Broker at Kirti Nagar, Delhi. Accused Prasoon Kumar Sinha is an ex-employee of the call centre while Harshit Chikara facilitated the gang by providing his bank account to transfer money made through cheating.

The gang member said that during duty hours they used to call the customers from the data provided by the company for telecalling. The call centre provided landline phones to new telecallers while senior employees had SIM cards which were used in their mobile instruments.

During duty hours they called the customers as per norms of the company. Conmen used to check the profile of the customers on Google and shortlisted their potential customers based on their profile like ITRs and policy amount. Then they used to contact them after duty hours through WhatsApp calls from their mobile phone as they already had access to customers’ number mobile numbers.

This is one case where the fraudsters were luckily caught by the police but such cases happen every other day and most of the people defrauded are not fortunate enough to get their money back because the scammers are smart enough to get away.

Now, people can easily save themselves from such frauds by being just cautious and having some presence of mind along with trusting their gut.

How to avoid being caught in such scams?

1.            Ask for identity proof- This should be something that no one has to tell you, but always ask for identity proof from the person contacting you. The bank officials or any other genuine agent always have either a company or a bank-issued id proof, so don’t give out any information to them unless you are sure that it’s authentic.

2.            Never pay in cash- No agent or bank employee will ever ask you to pay in cash and will always ask you to sign a cheque. Also, for extra care, call the customer care of the said bank and verify the cheque details before handing it in just to be double sure.

3.            Never give out your details- From your policy details to your details, don’t divulge them to any other person as they might be pretending to be an agent but is an imposter. The bank will always have the details of your policy so there’s no need for them to ask you those.

4.            Be careful while using Public Networks- Internet scams are on a high since the time things have started turning digital and the most common form is getting the details of an individual through a shared WIFI network or using a public computer. Make sure you sign out of all the accounts after using a public platform and using encrypted connections while uploading any information online.

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