Twenty-one-year-old Basha (name changed) was on cloud nine when he bought a used smartphone through OLX at throwaway price. But little did the Bengaluru-based youth know that police from neighbouring Tamil Nadu would soon be knocking on his door and telling him that it was mobile phone stolen on a train.
“I thought the stranger I contacted through the online site was an authentic seller. I met him to buy the device after bargaining a bit. I didn’t have a clue that the phone was being marketed online, until the police tracking the stolen device called me,” says a rattled Basha, recollecting the incident.
Like him, nearly 50 innocent buyers have fallen prey to thieves, who steal mobile phones on moving trains and market the loot via online free classified portals. Government Railway Police (GRP) officials said that a total number of 527 mobile phones that were largely stolen in trains and railway premises were recovered in 2015, of which about 50 were retrieved from those who bought it through OLX.in and Quikr.com.
“We have come across several such cases last year. When our officers zero in on the buyers, it turned out that they were innocent persons,” an investigating officer says.
Though cases are not registered against victims, the buyers ultimately land in soup, losing their hard-earned money, as the stolen devices are recovered and handed over to the genuine owners, who raised theft complaints. “In a few instances, tech-savvy persons log on to the free classified websites and alert us, if they find a mobile that resembles their missing phones,” another officer says.
The biggest impediment for the GRP, sources said is that buyers do not verify the authenticity of sellers and fail to demand ID proof during their dealing with unknown sellers. “When we check out the details of sellers on the sites during the course of investigation, it emerges that the information furnished by them is fake. Ironically, buyers also do not seek ID proof from the sellers, as they offer cellphones at cheaper rates” GRP SP Vijay Kumar explains.
When contacted, Quikr clarified that it deletes fraudulent listings and blocks the user from accessing the site. In an email reply to City Express, Atul Tewari, COO of Quikr said, “We use a combination of human effort, technology and phone verification to moderate our listings and we have a team of 100 people who work 24x7 to manually review them. The use of technology filters is an added advantage.”
He explained that his tech team has spent several hours creating cutting-edge tools to filter wrong or duplicate listings, unwanted words and anything that “violates our comprehensive listing policy. They have also reached out to customers for verification over the phone to crosscheck the authenticity of the listing. If we come upon a fraudulent listing, we delete it and also block the user from accessing the site.” However, OLX.in did not respond to calls or texts.
How to Play It Safe
Retain box and bill of the handset as both will have IMEI number and will be proof of ownership if authorities trace mobile One can also check IMEI number by typing *#06#
IMEI is unique to every device and helps identify handset on a mobile network, even if the thief changes SIM cards
Inbuilt Anti-theft
For those with smart phones, help is round the corner as most software has built in tools to keep your device safe
For those with smart phones, help is round the corner as most software has built in tools to keep your device safe