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Bengaluru entrepreneur duped of Rs 40,000 online

When the victim Nisha began the hunt for the accused who approached her on Facebook, she was blocked by him across all platforms.

BENGALURU: Looking for a skilled website developer to build an attractive website to launch your new business? Beware!

There are cyber thieves lurking on the Internet, waiting for a prey to fall into their trap. This is what happened to a young entrepreneur from Rajajinagar, who had dreamt of opening her own clothing online store and was looking for a website developer. She had to unfortunately shelve the idea after a conman web developer allegedly abused her and threatened to file a false lawsuit against her after duping her to the tune of Rs 40,000 and then vanishing into thin air.

For Dr Nisha Thomas, everything was going as per plan right from designing her clothing to its marketing. It was the last leg of her project where she had to hire a skilled website developer who could design a website for her clothing line within a limited budget. But things soon took an ugly turn. The victim had approached the Rajajinagar police on December 22 and lodged a complaint in this regard.

Online trap

It all began in September, after Ms Thomas, posted the requirement for a website developer on a community page called "Put Me In Touch With Bangalore" and received a pretty decent response. But she was oblivious to the fact that there was somebody just waiting for a gullible customer like her.

Giving details of how she was duped, Ms Thomas said, “A few months ago, I had posted my requirement on the forum "Put Me In Touch With Bangalore" and other similar forums, requesting them to help me find a website developer for my clothing line. I was glad to hear from so many talented and eager website developers from Bangalore. I was overwhelmed by the response I received within a day's time and began short listing as per my requirements and budget. I finally decided on one and sought the services of a man named Rithuin S Prakash, who claimed to be a freelancer and who also claimed to run a small-time developing firm with 2-3 employees working for him part-time," said Nisha Thomas to Deccan Chronicle.

She further charged that he had also claimed to have previously worked with HP, following which we decided to meet and discuss the project further and to begin the work soon. “Once everything was finalised, he met my team (some family members who are part of my business) in September. He produced a contract and asked us to sign it. We read the entire contract and fixed the deal for the amount of Rs 40, 000, which suited my pocket. After the deal was finalised, the accused Rithuin S. Prakash, demanded an advance of Rs 30, 000 while signing the contract and said that he could not begin the project as he first needed the money for software expenditure and for payment to his employees," she added.

Nisha, being a bit skeptical about the advance demand, refused to pay the amount initially, but fighting the clouds of doubt that arose in her mind, she finally walked straight into the trap. She promptly paid the amount of Rs 30, 000 in cash with a mere invoice with no details of the transaction being made. However, her suspicion rose after two weeks of fooling around and no work being done on the website.

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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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