Retiree loses life savings to Amazon spoof website
MUMBAI: A 59-year-old retiree lost his entire lifesavings, around of ₹15.41 lakh, in less than 20 days to an elaborate scam perpetrated in the name of online retail giant Amazon. The West Region Cyber police have initiated investigations into the matter.
According to police officials, the complainant, Sharad Agrawal, stays with his family in Chandivali and retired from a private firm last year. The police said that on November 4, Agrawal received a text message, offering part time jobs. Agrawal called the number from and spoke to a woman who identified herself as ‘Alice from Flipkart.’
‘Alice’ told Agrawal that he could gain easy money by leaving positive reviews on Flipkart. Agrawal did as he was told and was paid ₹300 the same day.
Convinced that he the deal was genuine, Agrawal expressed willingness to work further with ‘Alice’ and she gave him a number to contact.
“I contacted the number and the person at the other end claimed to be Jenny, ‘finance manager’ with Amazon. She added me to a Whatsapp group and sent me a link – amazonget.top - which led to an online shopping website that looked like Amazon. Jenny told me for every item that I bought on the website, I would be repaid with 20 per cent more than my spending,” Agrawal has said in his statement. Agrawal made small purchases in the beginning, and was repaid twice, which further cemented his trust in ‘Jenny’. He then started making larger purchases, with the prices going from thousands to lakhs.
“Till November 17, Agrawal made purchases worth ₹15.41 lakh through the spoof website. Not only was no product ever delivered to him, the accused also kept giving excuses every time he asked to be reimbursed. Ultimately, Agrawal had no more money left and he finally realised that he was being cheated,” said an officer with the west region cyber police.
Subsequently, on November 18, Agrawal approached the police and a complaint of cheating under IPC.