In a recent incident that took place at an East Delhi based IT company looking for sellers for their office renovation needs, were duped for a huge sum of money with no delivery by a fraudulent seller by the name of Kapoor Furnishers run by proprietor Jagat Bandhu Dangra.
Concerned company officials informed FintechLinkage team that they were duped by the seller they found on Indiamart.com, a reputed online B2B portal to discover traders.
The company was looking for modular workstation parts so they contacted IndiaMART. IndiaMART team shared them the list of sellers in Delhi and NCR area.
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After getting assurance from the seller, company paid him some advance money to process the company order. On the day of delivery, the fraudulent seller came to the company office and asked for the remainder of the deal in cash to expedite the delivery and provide the receipt of the same on reaching his office. Company hesitated but paid the cash since they had no clue that they were dealing with a scammer.
Next day they received their partial, unfinished and incomplete order and never received the complete order incurring a great financial loss to the company. On reaching out to the seller he denied for receiving any money from the company other than the advance money paid online. Later company realized that the seller Jagat Bandhu Dangra of Kapoor Furnishers was a fraudulent middlemen pretending to be a manufacturer.
Company officials added, while these online portals are doing great things but —
worst part of this ecosystem is, not all such sellers are really vetted and verified properly. Many fraudulent sellers are having no physical presence, simply operating from home and acting as middlemen with no real credentials.
These sellers pose as legit sellers, act as middle men and then dupe customers with their unethical practices.
Company has approached local police station in Delhi and Faridabad and lodged complaint for FIR against the seller Kapoor Furnishers proprietor Jagat Bandhu Dangra. IndiaMART Team is also being informed for this fraud activity.
The take here is — while its great that technology is adding ease to our lives but as a customer we must also be aware and stay alert when dealing with anyone you find online.
