Hyderabad: A press release of the Police said since a few days there has been a rampant increase of cyber frauds, particularly OLX frauds, where the citizens are losing a huge amount.
The cyber fraudsters are posting fake advertisements i.e., sale of motorcycles/cars and other valuable articles in the OLX platform/website. Whenever any customer shows interest to buy any of the items posted by fraudsters, they make them believe that they are working in army and they got transferred and they are selling the article for a low price and make the complaints/victims to transfer the amount into their e-wallets/bank accounts and finally cheat them to the tune of lakhs of rupees. Similarly, cyber fraudsters are cheating innocent citizens whenever they post any advertisement in OLX for sale by collecting huge amounts from them.
Thus, the cyber fraudsters are using the OLX platform to the maximum possible extent, to cheat the innocent citizens in a big way.
In order to prevent OLX frauds, the three police Commissionerates of Cyberabad, Hyderabad, and Rachakonda are striving hard to create awareness among the citizens and to apprehend the fraudsters. Despite taking several awareness campaign steps, the number of frauds taking place through the OLX platform is increasing day by day as there is no verification of the genuineness of the sellers posting ads in the portal.
The following are the details of OLX frauds reported during the year 2019 in all the three police Commissionerates of Hyderabad: 1309 complaints received from Cyberabad police Commissionarate in 2019 amount lost 4,37,69,843/-; 1642 complaints received from Hyderabad police commission rate– amount lost 5,23,00,000 in 2019; 887 complaints received from Rachakonda Commission rate — 3,74,90,680 in 2019
From the above figures, it is evident that the OLX frauds have been increasing by leaps and bounds since a few months, in spite of initiating several remedial measures.
In view of the above, citizens are requested to be very careful/vigilant, when intend to buy any of the articles posted on OLX portal to become a victim of a cybercrime and also to save themselves from losing their hard-earned money.
To prevent Cyber frauds citizens are advised to follow the following precautionary measures to avoid frauds when intended to purchase any article shown in OLX portal: Verify the product posted in OLX portal physically, before transferring any amount to the seller; Do not believe the ID cards sent in the name of Army personnel by the seller, as they are always fake ones; Do not believe the words of fraudster when they say the amount will be returned, once product is delivered; Ask for the original documents/bills for the products of the article, you intended to purchase prior to paying any amount; and Don’t scan the QR codes sent by the OLX fraudsters for transfer of amount, as those transactions are fraudulent one.
SOURCE: NSS
