Vadodara: "Aren't you sending the cops? We are still free. Policemen from your state haven't arrested us yet?" For over a fortnight, Lavanya Banerjee, a start-up co-founder from Ahmedabad, has been incessantly receiving such calls from a gang of cyberfrauds who allegedly scammed her mother of Rs 14,000 last month. Most scammers disappear without a trace after cheating their victims, but this gang has been taunting and challenging Banerjee over phone to have them arrested if she can.
"I had never imagined this scenario. The fraudsters have gone to extreme lengths to harass me. They seem to be getting a thrill out of it.
They call me at least a dozen times every day to mockingly tell me that the law hasn't been able to catch up with them," Banerjee, an Ahmedabad resident, told TOI. The barrage of calls started after Banerjee threatened to have them arrested. "A day after cheating my mother online in the last week of July, they called again hoping to siphon more money.
I received the call and told them to return my money. I told them that I would file a police complaint and that Gujarat cops would track them down," Banerjee said. She then filed a complaint at the Shahibaug police station.
"I blocked the numbers from which I got the phone calls, but they kept calling from different mobile numbers. I was amazed at their confidence. ‘Hamko arrest kar ke dikhaao.
Ab tak koi nahi aaya hamey pakadne,' (Get us arrested if you can. No one has come to nab us yet), they would say. I never thought the crooks would keep calling like this without the fear of getting tracked," Banerjee told TOI.
Banerjee's mother, Soumi, was duped by the accused while shopping for clothes online. She made a payment, but soon received a call saying that she would need to pay again as the earlier payment hadn't gone through. After she paid a few hundred rupees, she got a call again to pay more.
The caller said she would be refunded her earlier payment. This way, crooks siphoned off nearly Rs 14,000 from her account..
