'Call centre' duping people with top smartphones offer busted

New Delhi, Jan 13 A fake call centre in Rohini area duping scores of people by luring them to avail an "offer" of expensive smartphones on throwaway prices has been busted and three people arrested, police said on Wednesday.

According to police, the accused packed cheap mobile phones in place of high value mobile phones, and the buyers did not check the product at the time of delivery and handed over the cash.

A raid was conducted on Tuesday in Rohini's Budh Vihar and three accused, identified as Bhupesh Gupta, Prashant and Mohit Kumar were arrested. 10 mobile phones, one computer, with peripheral devices, used in commission of crime and registers maintained for records were recovered from their possession.

On sustained interrogation, Gupta revealed that he and Prashant devised a method to cheat people by making phone calls on a series of randomly chosen numbers and telling them that their names have come up in a lucky draw and the company would wish to offer them costly smartphones of a particular company on cheap rates. They also offered combo pack with other items like watches and shoes.

They booked the parcels through the GPO with the postman collecting the amount on delivery of the parcel. Later on, the accused used to collect the amount from the GPO.

Gupta also revealed that he used to work in a call centre earlier also, where such type inducements were used to dupe people. In order to earn bigger profits, he and Prashant started their own work separately and set up their call centre.

"They even hired some female staff for calling the persons. The role of female staff is under investigation. Another accused namely Prashant also confirmed the version of accused Bhupesh Gupta. They have cheated more than 500 people in the last one month," DCP, Rohini, P.K. Mishra said.

( With inputs from IANS )