CHENNAI: When a woman from England accepted his Facebook friendship request and engaged with him in long phone conversations peppered with many ‘dear’ and ‘darling’, Dileep Kumar was elated.
A month later now he has been left poorer by `three lakh by what appears to be a carefully laid honey trap via the social media.
Kumar, a saree weaver and businessman from Arani village in Tiruvallur district, knocked the doors of the district police hoping the police would be able to track the con-men and help him get back the money.
Kumar says it all started when one ‘Linda Bosman’, who said she was a woman from England, accepted his friendship request in Facebook about a month ago and quickly befriended and exchanged phone numbers.
After having a friendly phone conversation, in the first week of August she promised to fulfil Kumar’s desire by visiting him in his village. “Then she told me that she is going to America due to some emergency and had sent the luggage alone to India first and it will be delivered to my house. Two days later, I got a call from Delhi airport claiming that I should pay `48,000 since the parcel was above the permitted level. After the man mailed me an account number, I credited the amount to it,” Kumar told Express.
But, soon Kumar started getting phone calls from ‘customs department officials’ and then ‘RBI officials’ all claiming that some `48 lakh worth UK currencies are inside the parcel that is supposed to be delivered to him and hence he has to pay various fines and fees. “When I called Linda, she told me that she needed the money since she has planned to make a huge purchase from my shop. She pleaded with me to pay the money and promised to repay me once she comes to India,” Kumar said.
Believing her, Kumar had transferred `98,000 to the bank account number given by the ‘customs official’ and `1.5 lakh to the account number given by ‘RBI official’.But the phone calls did not stop. Kumar again got a call from an ‘RBI manager’ demanding ` `five lakh more for the “tax code” since the parcel meant for him contains huge foreign currencies. This made Kumar suspicious and his fears came true when he phoned the Reserve Bank of India’s office and sought clarifications.
When Kumar phoned Linda and confronted her with the information he received from the real RBI office, her phone permanently went into switch off mode and her Facebook account vanished.
Tiruvallur district crime branch is investigating Kumar’s complaint.