GUWAHATI: A Guwahati resident was duped of Rs 35,000 while receiving an order from Amazon. Noor Ahmed is a student from B Borooah College who ordered books from the e-commerce site Amazon on 25th December.
After two days, he received a call from an unidentified caller who claimed to be from Amazon Sales and Promotion Department and asked him his order number. He verified the same and was offered a free gift worth Rs 50,000.
To avail of the gift, the caller told him to buy a coupon worth Rs 5,000. "The man gave me a coupon code and asked me to use the code and pay from Amazon pay UPI," added Ahmed. Since Noor didn't have Amazon pay UPI, he was then asked to pay from Paytm and was given an account number.
Upon paying Rs 5,000 he received a message on WhatsApp claiming a GST error. He was then asked by the alleged scamster to pay Rs 9,999 as GST. Noor Ahmed paid again and received a message that it was a wrong transaction. He was assured that he will get back the money after 10 minutes and was asked to pay again in the meantime.
Noor Ahmed paid another Rs 9,999 and this time he was told he got a penalty and will have to pay Rs 10,000 to get back all of the money he paid so far. He paid Rs 10,000 to get all his money back. But by then, he started to feel suspicious while being on line with the caller. Ahmed then called his friend from Bangalore who worked at Amazon.
The friend cross-verified and revealed that there was no such offer against the order.
"I lost money because they had my order number. My privacy was leaked and I lost my money," Ahmed added. Noor Ahmed has so far lost Rs 35,000 and has filed an FIR at Paltan Bazar Police Station.
G Plus spoke to Officer in Charge (OC) of Paltan Bazar police station Prakash Tiwari who confirmed the matter. "Our cyber cell will guide us in the theft and so far we don't have anything. The investigation is going on," informed Tiwari.