This is How A 21-Year Old Delhi Boy Robbed Amazon Of Rs 50 Lakh!

In yet another case of online scam, a 21-year old man from India’s national capital: New Delhi scammed Amazon of Rs 50 lakh.

After Amazon initiated an internal enquiry, police started a manhunt for this scamster, and was able to arrest him yesterday, and slapped various sections of Indian Penal Code.

The scam clearly exploited the loopholes in Amazon’s return policies, and used them for nefarious actions.

The biggest problem with such scams executed by exploiting return policies is that, genuine users, who genuinely face problems during online shopping, are left high and dry while attempting to file a return.

Hope this case becomes a lesson for all those, who thinking of scamming ecommerce portals, because that unfair, criminal and unethical.

Rs 50 Lakh Scam: The Modus Operandi

Shivam Chopra is studying Hotel Management at New Delhi’s Rohini area. While ordering some products from Amazon, he got a criminal idea to make money by robbing them.

Shivam is based out of Tri Nagar in New Delhi’s North-West area.

He used to order expensive smartphones from Amazon, and chose cash on delivery.

When the delivery guy came to deliver the handset, he used to ask them to come to a nearby location, not his actual home. He used to pay by cash, get his smartphone.

However, within few hours, he used to report to Amazon that he has received an empty packet, and used to claim refunds.

Amazon’s return policy didn’t check the authenticity of the claim (which is a huge error), and used to simply refund the whole amount as a gift voucher to Shivam.

Now, he used to order another smartphone with the gift voucher, and sell off the handset received earlier to black markets such as Gaffar area in North-West Delhi, or at Olx/Quikr portals.

Who Helped Shivam In This Scam?

Now, you need different mobile phones for ordering different handsets at different times. And this is why Shivam used to procure fake pre-activated SIM cards from Sachin Jain, 38, who runs a local telecom store near to his home. All he paid was Rs 150 to get a new SIM with a new number.

As per police reports, Shivam acquired 141 pre-activated SIM cards for executing this scam, and scammed Amazon of 166 smartphones between April and May this year.

Total amount which he scammed out of Amazon was Rs 50 lakh.

When police finally caught him, they recovered Rs 12 lakh in cash, 19 mobile phones, and 40 passbooks of various banks from his home.

Besides, he had kept Rs 10 lakh with a close acquaintance as his safety net.

As per police, Amazon grew suspicious after the refund request started originating from the same location in Delhi’s North West region.