Several people have been duped recently through a fake online webpage of a Burrabazar-based textile company displaying garments on Facebook and offering huge discounts on their products.
An officer of the cyber police station said they received a complaint from Shyam Textiles — whose office is located on Mahatma Gandhi Road in northwest Kolkata — alleging someone had created a website in their name offering huge discounts on garments and textiles if they were purchased through the same webpage on Facebook.
The police said the products were never delivered.
The police arrested Shiv Shankar Prasad, one of the alleged suspects, from his house in the Bidhannagar area on Tuesday.
“We received a complaint from Shyam Textiles saying that many of their clients had been duped after they did online transactions through a webpage on Facebook,” said the officer.
After receiving the complaint, the police started collecting details of the people who were allegedly duped and the transaction details that were made using that webpage.
Officers could track the e-wallets and the bank accounts where the swindled money was transferred. “We had arrested one more person in connection with this fraud earlier also,” said the officer.
This is not the first time that fraudsters have used Facebook or some other social media platform to dupe people by creating fake websites of companies.
A senior officer in Lalbazar said there was practically no way to differentiate between a fake and a genuine website whose advertisements are posted on social media.
“The fake websites look exactly like the original ones except if someone makes any purchase through them, the money would be transferred to fraudulent accounts and the victim would never get the product. The best way to find out is to Google the link and check if there are any feedback or complaints against that link,” said the officer.
Officers of the cyber police station said they were trying to find out the other members who could be possibly part of the same racket.
Another officer said if someone wanted to verify the credential of an advertisement posted on social media, he or she could directly call the company through the phone numbers mentioned on their website. “One should never search for phone numbers directly from the search engines because search engines can be edited. Customer care numbers should be searched only from the company’s website,” the officer said.