From past couple of years, various people are arrested under cheating cases, especially when online shopping sites are concerned. Purchasing something, then claiming that they didn’t receive anything has become a trend, many of such incidents took place with iPhones and the convicts were caught by tracing out the IMEI numbers.

A similar incident took place in Bengaluru. A woman was arrested for allegedly cheating e-commerce giant Amazon India to the tune of Rs 69.91 lakh by making numerous online purchases, returning substandard or cheap lookalikes and selling the original items on another shopping websites.

In every situation, the woman has claimed the refunds worth lakhs of rupees from Amazon for the delivered products after returning their inexpensive duplicates. After the portal authorities identified this, they charged a probe on her, the respective cops belonging to Hennur police station identified the suspect as engineering graduate Deepanwita Ghosh(32), a native of West Bengal who lives in Rajanna Layout, Horamavu, Agara, with her husband.

She was employed with a professional services company. An avid online buyer, Ghosh decided to deceive the system. According to a complaint lodged with police on April 18 by Amazon representative Denu T Nair, Ghosh used fake names and made 104 online purchases of items, including high-end cellphones, SLR cameras, TVs and other electronic equipment. She sent product return requests within 24 hours, demanding refunds using Amazon’s customer return system.

Ajay Hilori, deputy commissioner of police, Bengaluru east said:

“Every time, the delivery address was different from the C-return address, which was often in other cities. After getting a repayment from Amazon to her bank account, Deepanwita would replace the product with a substandard one and hand over the package to the delivery person.”

The police further added that the woman has been doing this since a year, as the firm then didn’t have the policy of opening and inspecting the product at the time of reaccepting it. This probe was charged on Ghosh after authorities spotted that many returned products were not the originals, an internal probe was carried out which zeroed in on her.

Later the police revealed that she used to maintain parallel operations, with a pseudonym Rajarshi96, she receives customer orders for high-end electronic items. She then placed a parallel order for each product on www.amazon.in and got Amazon to ship the product to her clients’ addresses in different cities, including Kolkata.

“Once her customer received the product and Ghosh received cash for it, she would initiate a C-return with Amazon and receive a refund by returning lookalikes,” narrated an authority.

Summing up her total shopping amount, she made 104 such fraudulent transactions and filled her kitty with Rs 69, 91,940 before she was apprehended by a Hennur police team in April end. An Amazon spokesperson said that incidents of malpractice are taken with extreme seriousness and the firm is extending support/information needed for the police investigation.

Post this incident, the Amazon authorities stated that they’re going to follow up with certain modifications in return policies. Speaking about the amendments, a company warehouse executive has said:

“Now, products like cellphones are received from customers only after verifying IMEI numbers and other items following corroboration of unique product codes apart from a thorough inspection. An acknowledgment with the customer’s signature is also obtained at the time of return of expensive items.”