Mumbai: Man duped of Rs 1 lakh in listing fraud while booking hotel room

A 49-year-old marketing national head of a petroleum company was recently duped to the tune of Rs 1.08 lakh by a cyber fraudster on the pretext of hotel booking. The complainant was searching online for hotel booking on a local search engine, when he came across a website and contacted the number, only to be duped by the fraudsters. A case of cheating and impersonation has been registered at Bandra police station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.

The complainant said in his statement to the police that he travels around the country in connection to work and was supposed to be in Pune for a meeting from April 20 to 22. Subsequently, the man searched for a 3-star hotel in Pune, he came across a hotel– Tarawade Clarks Inn Pune, which had a decent rating and immediately contacted the number from the search engine.

Upon contacting the number, a man who identified himself as Roy answered the call and when the complainant told that he wanted to book a room, Roy connected him to the manager, Raj. During the conversation, Raj asked the complainant to register himself and be eligible for hotel booking, following which he sought his personal details and asked the complainant to send Rs.5,000 for booking. Subsequently, the complainant obliged, but Raj informed him that the money was not received and booking had not been confirmed.

In order to confirm the booking, Raj asked the complainant to send money, to which the complainant sent Rs.18,085, only to learn that there was an issue at the banking end and was asked to send Rs. 42,588. The complainant did send so, and was asked to send the amount again on the promise that it will be refunded. When the demands kept on increasing, the complainant grew suspicious and stopped answering the calls made by Raj and Roy.

Curious, the man checked the hotel's website and found some other contact number in the list. When he called the contact number from the website, he learnt that he was duped of Rs. 1,08,261 and there were no employees in the name of Raj and Roy working at the 3-star hotel. The hotel staff also informed him that another woman was cheated using the same modus operandi.

The marketing head immediately approached the Bandra Police and lodged a complaint, acting on which a case was registered against the unidentified accused. While no arrests have been made yet, police are investigating the matter.