Scamsters using profiles of army officers to con people

The ruse of army officers selling goods on online marketplaces is being used to con people out of large sums of money

A strange pattern has emerged where conmen are pretending to be Army officers to scam others on online marketplaces like OLX.

Hundreds of such cases have popped up across the country, where people use profiles of army officers, including intricate details like a photo in uniform, a PAN card, Aadhar, and even army canteen cards to con people, according to a report by The Indian Express.

There is a method to this madness. A low-price vehicle is advertised on an online marketplace like OLX. The vehicle is advertised as “army-owned” and the fraudster manages to share, often fake documents for authentication. To complete the con, photos of army officers, sourced from one of their many fan pages or facebook profiles, is used as the profile photo of the account handling the negotiation. The buyer is then asked to deposit either the whole or part of the total sum as a digital transaction.

According to IE, the scam has been running for close to two years now.

One reason to use profiles of army officials could be to exploit the general sense of trust and respect people have for them. It allows scamsters to weasel out of certain requirements.

“Itna sab aapko dikha diya. Ab faujiyon pe yakeen nahi hai? (I showed you so many documents, do you not trust an army man),” said the conman who scammed Gopal Gaur from Mayur Vihar.

“Posing as a defence person means there’s always an excuse for anything, ‘I can’t pick up calls, I can’t carry my phone here. I can’t speak on the phone now’,” a cyber cell official told the source.

Due to the nature of the profession, involving multiple transfers and relocation, selling goods at throwaway prices does not seem suspicious either.

There are hundreds of posts from people who claim to have been affected by the scam on the microblogging platform Twitter.

“I was going to buy a scooty on olx and the deal was confirmed the seller sent me his id And took 10,000 Rs from me online. Now no scooty no money.This is bad.” wrote one person on Twitter.

“On Olx few fraudulent persons are posting ads with tempting offer to trap people. These fraud persons are cheating/duping others in pretext of selling/buying through OLX. Be Aware of such frauds pretending to be force personnel projecting from CISF or other Defence Forces,” wrote the CISF handle on Twitter.

Despite multiple warnings and reports, people continue to fall for this scam. After all, it is hard to resist a good deal.