Fraudsters booked for insurance scam

GURUGRAM: The city’s cyber police have registered an FIR against unknown persons for allegedly cheating people by claiming to be from an online

insurance

aggregator.

Policybazaar, in its police complaint on December 19, had alleged that a few individuals have been financially defrauding people on the pretext of providing or renewing insurance policies by misrepresenting themselves. The company, in its complaint, mentioned that according to the insurance laws in India, a policy can only be issued by an insurance company that is registered with IRDAI.

Policybazaar

only acts as an intermediary under the insurance statutory and regulatory framework, it said.

The company, in its complaint, mentioned that the fraudster called people from different mobile numbers falsely claiming to be Policybazaar representatives and introduced them to insurance policies. The accused also created a fake e-mail ID using the name of the company, it said. “This fake ID is used by them to misguide the general public into believing that they are associated with the company,” a senior official from the company told police.

Elaborating on the modus operandi, the official said, once an individual agrees to purchase or renew an insurance policy, the fraudsters ask the victims to transfer an amount of money into their account. They allegedly asked people to transfer money via Paytm, PayU and UPI transactions. They created an account on Paytm under the name “Policybazaar Pay”.

The fraud came to light when the company started recieving complaints. “When a victim told us, we informed Paytm of the illegal transactions,” reads the complaint. An FIR was filed against unknown persons under IPC sections 420 (cheating) and 66D (impersonation by using computer source) of the IT Act at Cyber police station on Friday.