Looking for a house on rent ? Better not be in a hurry. A swindler in Punjab’s SAS Nagar (Mohali) duped over eight thousand unsuspecting customers by posing as a property broker and getting payments worth of Rs 1.44 Crore by posting fake advertisements ‘online’ for accomodations available on rent.
The station house officer (SHO) Balongi, Periwinkle Singh Grewal, said the scammer Paramjit Singh, 42, has duped over 8138 people in past few years after posting advertisements for houses or flats available on rent in Kharar (an education hub with number of private universities) and other areas of Mohali.
The SHO said Paramjit would first himself visit houses available for rent and click photographs there. He then posted the same pictures on OLX and other online popular social media platforms to lure customers looking for an accomodation on rent.
“Once anyone contacted him (Paramjit) to enquire about the rent and other information about the concerned house, Paramjit would tell them about the other customers who were also interested in the same. He would make them pay advance to finalise the deal at the earliest or he would give the house to someone else. Unsuspecting customers would transfer Rs Five thousand to Rs fifteen thousand into his bank account without even visiting the site or meeting him in person. After receiving the payment, Paramjit would switch off his cell number,” Grewal told The Statesman.
He said transactions worth Rs 1.44 Crore have been found in the 10 bank accounts of the accused. “We found some other bank accounts operated by Paramjit and the amount received from the customers could go up once we get all the transaction details,” the SHO said.
Grewal said while 8111 complaints were received against Paramjit on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (Helpline Number -1930), 22 such complaints were registered at police stations in Kharar, three in Haryana and one each at Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
Police sources said the number of complaints can also go up as many of the duped customers have not registered any complaint against Paramjit.
Paramjit ran out of luck after he duped the relative of a senior police officer who got the case registered against the accused. He was arrested on Wednesday and has been sent into police remand for five days.