Shopping Scam: Retired Official Lost Life’s Savings To Amazon Look-A-Like Website

MUMBAI: In less than twenty days, a 59-year-old retiree lost his entire life savings to a sophisticated hoax performed in the name of online retail giant Amazon. The West Region Cyber police of Mumbai have begun investigating the incident.

According to police officials, Sharad Agrawal resides in Chandivali with his family and retired from a private company last year.

According to the police, Agrawal received a text message advertising part-time employment on November 4, this year.

Agrawal dialled the number from which he received the message and spoke with a lady who introduced herself as “Alice from Flipkart.”

The alleged Alice advised Agrawal that he could earn money easily by posting nice reviews on Flipkart. Agrawal followed instructions and got paid 300 the same day.

Agrawal was convinced that he was dealing with a legitimate entity, stated his willingness to continue working with “Alice,” and she provided him with her contact information.

“When I dialled the number, a woman identified herself as Jenny, ‘financial manager’ at Amazon. She invited me to a WhatsApp group and sent me a link to amazonget.top, which led to a website that resembled the homepage of Amazon.com. Jenny assured me that with everything I purchased on the website, I would receive 20% more than what I had spent, according to Agrawal’s statement to the police.

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Agrawal initially made tiny purchases and was twice refunded with a 20% profit, which strengthened his faith in ‘Jenny’. Then, he began making larger purchases, with prices increasing from thousands to lakhs.

After one transaction, the imposter acting as Jenny informed Agrawal that he had purchased the same goods twice, causing a system error.

Jenny stated that he would need to make additional purchases in order to rectify the error.

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Until November 17, Agrawal made a total of Rs 15.41 lakh worth of purchases using the fraudulent website. Not only was he never sent goods, but he also received excuses whenever he requested reimbursement. Agrawal eventually ran out of money and realised he had been defrauded, according to an officer from the West Region Cyber police station.

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On November 18, Agrawal contacted the police, and a complaint of cheating under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act was filed.

The officials are currently gathering the domain information and Internet Protocol (IP) address of the spoof website, as well as the accused’s mobile phone numbers.

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