Stop falling prey to online aid..! Delhi police moves arresting the web tricksters

New Delhi, March 13: The Delhi Police has arrested six persons for allegedly cheating people, mostly residing in the US and Europe, on the pretext of providing them online technical assistance, police said Tuesday. On March 7, police received a tip-off regarding the racket being operated from Anupam Building in Pitampura.

They raided the location and found that the place was being used to run an office from where the accused made and received international calls using dialer through VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).

It was revealed that the accused registered them on a Google Search Engines’ paid services licensee for helping customers in troubleshooting.

"When the customer would call the given customer care number, the same was routed to them in India by their counterparts based abroad. It was then, the less savvy customer were lured to buy Google Play cards and divulge the other details including bank account numbers on the pretext of fixing their technical issues," the officer said.

Rajan added that they were bypassing the legal International Gateways and purchasing the VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) minutes from unauthorised Internet Service Providers and their act was causing a "huge loss" to the government exchequer.

"The potential loss caused by them is being assessed. Most of the victims were from the United State of America and other European countries," the police said.

Throwing light on the modus operandi, Rajiv Ranjan, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), said the victims comprised the customer base of Google, Facebook, Paypal, Apple who would seek help with their passwords and other technical hindrances.

They would increase their online presence by keeping them on the top slot of a search result, they said.

"This coaxed the unsuspecting customer to call the prominently available number on the first page. The customer did not doubt as the helpline number provided by them was on the top of the search result," the officer said.

He added that they received nearly 50 calls per day and would get around USD 50 for every call.