The Delhi Police’s EOW (Economic Offences Wing) has arrested officials of a web portal selling home appliances and mobile phones at discounted rates for alleged fraud.
The police action came after over 200 complaints were filed against the website — www.timtara.com — across the country. The portal was being run by Arindam Bose (47) who is also the director of the company. According to the complaints, Timtara failed to deliver the products despite being paid in full. Another arrested executive of the company is Harish Ahluwalia (35), who is the chief operations officer of the website. Before they were arrested, the dup had accepted payments of more than Rs 10 lakh in total for goods that they never shipped out.
Bose, a resident of Janakpuri area, is a highly qualified professional IT professional. He is originally from Kolkata and holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics. He had moved to the USA in 1989 where he took up a job after studying at Clemson University. He returned to India in 1994 and worked with a major electronics appliances brand as its IT head. In 2010 he started Timtara.com with three others.
Another accused Harish Ahluwalia is from Noida and a native of Haryana. He is a graduate and worked as assistant sales manager in a mobile company. He left the company in June 2012 and joined Timtara.com as its administration in-charge. He was promoted to the post of chief operating officer of the company in November 2012.
Apart from three cases registered against Timtara.com, there is another case registered against Arindam Bose in Punjab related to a property issue.
A senior police said the EOW has been receiving complaints from customers from all over India. It was also mentioned that the customer care centre set up by the web portal to look into grievances of the buyers had stopped functioning. “The online portal offered to sell various products like cameras, mobile phones, home appliances, kitchen appliances, consumer electronics, computer, games, health and personal care products, home décor, perfumes and watches at rates much lower than the market’s. They took the money in advance and promised to deliver the product,” the police official said.
The police official said a few of the victims also reached the office of the website situated in Noida Sector-8 but were shocked to find it shut. The police further said high discount offers made by Timtara.com were misleading and false representations were made to entrap customers. A special team of cyber cell investigated and raided several places and managed to nab the culprits. Investigations revealed that the online portal was registered on behalf on M/s InfoSecure Pvt ltd, with Arindam Bose as one of the directors.