Jaipur: Fraudsters dupe patients’ kin who seek online help

JAIPUR: Abhinav Sharma (22) of Jagatpura here is frantically calling up the cyber cell of Jaipur to register his complaint against an unknown person for duping him of Rs 8,000. Sharma, whose father is down with Covid, was looking for an oxygen cylinder on an urgent basis and had posted a request on Twitter.
“Somebody forwarded the number to me for oxygen cylinder with a disclaimer that nothing needs to be paid until the cylinder is delivered at your doorstep. Since the condition of my father was not good, I had gone against the advice and transferred Rs 8,000 as a security amount on that contact number,” said Sharma, whose father Upendra Narayan Shastri is a veteran.
The caller didn’t respond thereafter and after a while blocked his number. After calling from another number, the fraudster made fun of him and disconnected the call. This is not a case in isolation. Every day, several Covid patients’ relatives/friends end up losing money to fraudsters who promise to deliver oxygen on the condition of depositing money online.
Many police stations have received complaints about the same in the last two weeks. The scamsters based in West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh get the numbers of the distressed from social media and take advantage of the urgency of patients.
An IT expert, Arnab Sarkar, who lives in Mansarovar is still surprised how he was fooled by an online oxygen scamster. Sarkar had sourced the number for an oxygen cylinder for his uncle down with Covid.
“The person asked for Rs 5,500 for a 15-litre oxygen cylinder, which we agreed considering the urgency. He asked that 50% payment should be made in advance. Thereafter, he said that the full amount has to be paid since they had some technical issue and after much debate, we again agreed as we were racing against time. The cylinder never came,” said Sarkar, who added he was aware of the tactics.
Reacting to the cases, Ajay Pal Lamba, ACP, Jaipur Police Commissionerate, urged people that they should not make any payment against any medical service until they have verified it by themselves. “