Gyalshing girl duped Rs1.95 lakh by online friend

EOI, Gangtok, 22 April 2014: A girl from Gyalshing in West Sikkim has fallen prey to an online scam, in which she lost as much as Rs1.95 lakh. The girl was tricked by her facebook friend named William Jackson from UK, which was later found to be fake. They were active online friends and had been chatting with each other on the social website since April 2, 2014.

The friendship eventually grew and they started talking on phone. During one of the conversation her friend expressed his intensions to send some gifts and money. However, the shipment required some amount to be paid as courier charges, anti-terrorism charges and money registration charges as per government rules. This is when a lady agent and apparently a friend of William Jackson, contacted the girl and provided her with a few bank account details to deposit the money. The innocent girl deposited a total of Rs.1.95 lakh.

However, suspicion arose when the agent asked the girl to fill a form and demanded extra money. When she inquired with the bank, the money she had deposited were already withdrawn. The lady agent too stopped taking her calls, while her online friend has also since been offline.

It was learned nine bank accounts where the girl deposited the amount into were from different states and under different names. The girl has written to the SBI to freeze the fake accounts and have also filed a police complaint. A case under section 420/468/34 and R/S 66 D IT Act 2000 has been registered.