A fraud a day on dating apps & websites keeps Pune police on toes

PUNE: A Standard XII student from Aundh recently spent about Rs3.64 lakh by using his software engineer father’s debit card to go on a date with an unknown woman through an application he had downloaded on his smart phone.

The student, however, had to confide in his father the entire incident after failing to meet the woman and get back the money paid through the cellphone app. This is the recent case of duping via cellphone-based dating apps registered with the city police.
A cybercrook, who had posed as an official of a dating website, had lured the student with a promise to provide contacts of “an attractive woman”. The man collected money from him on the pretext of registration and GST charges.
The student went on using his father’s debit card and spent Rs3.64 lakh just to meet the woman, as promised by the cybercrook.
“We receive at least one application from people cheated on dating websites and apps every week,” Pune police’s cybercrime cell senior inspector, Radhika Phadke, told TOI. “Very few come forward to lodge FIRs. Instead of feeling embarrassed, people should lodge complaints,” she said.
Earlier this year, a 28-year-old UPSC aspirant fell for the lies of a glib-talker she befriended on a matrimonial website and was cheated of Rs4.26 lakh on the promise of marriage. The man posing as a medical practitioner from London used the old trick of claiming to have sent her a costly gift to cheat her. He sought money from her under the pretext of payment of GST and currency exchange charges.
It is not only youngsters who fall prey to the traps laid by the cybercrooks through such websites. Instances of the frauds targeting senior citizens staying alone are galore. Last year, a businessman from Hadapsar lost Rs6.59 lakh after being blackmailed by some suspects.
Phadke said in many cases, the police have found that male or female friends of the victims used the latter’s photographs to create fake social media profiles. “In many cases, the profiles were created to take revenge after a break-up or some dispute,” Phadke said.
“Such people also create fake profiles on the dating apps and post them on pornographic websites, causing more trouble for the victims,” Phadke said.
Citing an example, Phadke said a Standard IV student created a fake profile of his female classmate on a social media account and posted lewd and obscene comments on her profile. “The boy had used the cellphone of another classmate to post the comments,” Phadke said.
Besides the young adults and the senior citizens, the romance scammers also target the queer community as they are more reluctant to go to the police.
One application from an employee of a Hadapsar-based private company employee has left the cybercrime cell in a shock. The complainant was frustrated because the moment he would leave office, he would start receiving calls from people interested in gay sex. “The calls would be from people in the areas he would visit after the office. The complainant was worried, as he was newly married. Probe revealed that somebody had posted his phone number on a website,” Phadke said.