The Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing arrested three people for allegedly hoodwinking customers of the TV 18 home shopping network limited with their false claims and making them deposit money towards TDS charges, processing fee amounts in fake bank accounts.
The accused — identified as Vishal Nath, Tarun Sharma and Dinesh — carried out these acts by using the registered trademark, proprietary mark, logo, image of a TV company and portrayed themselves as its representatives, said police officials.
According to a senior police official in the EOW, the first complaint was registered on January 15 this year, after which the second complaint was registered on June 20, when the culprits could not be identified by police. The complainant, Raman Gulati, who had launched the 24-hour home shopping TV channel and is the director of operations in the company, registered the second FIR after almost six months. Gulati in his second complaint alleged the accused who had committed cognizable and non-cognizable offences against the company, were yet to be 'readily' identified.
During investigation it was found that a person acting as an imposter has been sending forged letter of the tele-marketing channel to its customers, informing them about their name being selected in lucky draw, lottery of the TV channel and advising them to deposit TDS processing fees in the bank account provided by them, said the official, adding that people were told that they had won lED TVs and motor vehicles amongst other things. The customers were also promised that they would receive the prize after depositing the TDS and processing fee. The investigation into the trail of dispatched letters revealed that they were being deposited in a particular Post Office, said the official.
On interrogation of the accused, it was revealed that the accused used to collect the data of the customers of the TV channel home shopping from a call center run by accused Vishal Nath and thereafter call the possible targets. Tarun Sharma and Dinesh used to provide them the fictitious bank accounts in which the amount was deposited by the victims. Forged lookalike letters of the TV network were also sent to the possible targets, wherein all the relevant details pertaining to the bank account, in which the amount was to be deposited, were mentioned. The letter used to contain the details of the 'order' which that particular victim had placed with the home shopping channel so that the victim gets a feeling of carrying a genuine communication, said the official.
Through this modus operandi they cheated hundreds, causing wrongful loss of approximately 15 lakhs.
“We have recovered the home shopping channel's customer's data, 33 fresh envelopes containing forged letters for new targets, sample letter-head of the home shopping channel, 2 cheque books in some fake names, 2 ATM cards, 6 mobile phones, 3 SIMs, 2 printers and a laptop. Further investigation in the matter is in progress,” said Additional Commissioner of Police, EOW, Arun Kampani.