Olx fake mobile scam

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nRiTeCh

nRiTeCh

Oracle
I was looking for some used phones on olx.
Bumped into many attractive ads and contacted all sellers. One of them was selling the phone for 15k and finally settled for 12.5k. He himself sent me the "original" bill snapshot 2 days back.
Due to office, I wasnt able to complete the deal. Today evening we were supposed to meet to complete the deal. But something struck my mind....The bill belonged to a Mumbai shop and the phone no. wasnt matching the area code as I'm from Mumbai and very well aware of all landline nos. series.
So I began googling the shop name mentioned on the bill. Its a famous shop and Justdial listed some another no. No issues. I contacted the shop and asked if their no. got changed but i was shocked what I heard from the shopkeeper.....

He said there is no such phone no. registered on their name. Then he asked me the bill invoice no. which came out to be fake. Then he told me he was already facing issues and frustrated with visitors claiming they bought phone from his shop which turned to be fake bill invoices.
He has already lodged FIR last month and asked me that persons name and phone no.
We exchanged all the relevant details, and he sent me the FIR copy.

Dont know how but on Olx, sellers are creating fake bills on his shop names and selling phones at high or low rates moreover claiming the phones under warranty.

And mostly the people who visited or inquired were from Pune and Mumbai mixed. The owner said its a big racket going on and I was the 14th person calling.

Advise: if you ever wanna buy phone on olx or any similar site, ask for the bill even if the warranty has expired as the phone can be a stolen one and you might land in a big big trouble. I saved my self by striking the right chord at the end time.
So stay careful and shop smartly. :cool:

** Phones brand name and the affected shop name cannot be revealed due to obvious reasons.
 
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This has actually happened to me and one of my friends. However, it was an iPhone and we had verified the warranty and IMEI online and luckily it was an Indian iPhone. Yes it could still have been stolen but we didn't hang onto the phone for very long.
 
reminds me of when i was 12..i wanted a alienware.got one for 40k on olx ..almost deposited the amount in the bank account when the seller turned out to be a fraud.
fast forward today,if i get an alienware for free..no thanks i will sell it for profit

and another time recently
2 weeks ago my friend got scammed by someone selling a bike on olx.he went to police those ******* took 2-5k in bribes and ignored the **** out of him.
 
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@nRiTeCh Thanks for highlighting this.

A request to the others who post/have posted about similar experiences. Please provide more details about the modus operandi if you can, so gullible people can be made aware of the pitfalls. A lot of times family & friends tend to get tempted & being able to describe specific instances of how scamsters operate helps better inform them of the possible pitfalls. Thanks.
 
The thing is, that it isn't easy to ascertain whether one is being scammed in such a case. I don't think 99.9% of the people care about verifying whether the bill is genuine or not.
In my case, since it was an iPhone, I was able to verify the warranty and the country. The same isn't possible for other manufacturers.
In US, many people who buy second hand phones from Craigslist, prefer that the transaction takes place in a carrier store, so that they can verify that the phone is not blacklisted and check the purchase date as well. It also helps them safeguard against the seller blacklisting the phone after selling it off.

For something similar in Indian context, one should take the phone to an authorized service centre before paying for it so that they can check the authenticity of the warranty. This will also safeguard them against buying a grey-market import with a bogus bill.
 
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rdst_1 said:
For something similar in Indian context, one should take the phone to an authorized service centre before paying for it so that they can check the authenticity of the warranty. This will also safeguard them against buying a grey-market import with a bogus bill.
Click to expand...

But Indian sellers least bother about such important things and prefer a fast sale rather than proving their authenticity and genuinity of the product.

Instead they say 'bharosa nahi hai kya? Bill to hai, aur kya proof chahiye? Service center le jau aur khud check kar lo. Mai itne saal se bech raha hu ab tak koi item kharab nai nikla..etc etc..

They will never spare time to visit service centre and instead will shoo you away as they feel disrespected rather then taking it in a healthy way.

Hence the sellers also prefer illeterate buyers who got no knowledge of any cross verification stuff and get easy money.
They even buy seperate sim for such duping purpose and throw it once the purpose is met.
 
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vivek.krishnan said:
This is not a new tactic, @pratzgh1 has faced this issue with a seller from this forum, I believe.

Pratik - your side of the story?
Click to expand...

How can I forget! It was Bhushan a.k.a Bking who sold me a Samsung Galaxy S4 with "original" bill under warranty. There was some issue with the phone and I ended up taking the phone to Samsung service center who confirmed that the phone was reported stolen from Hyderabad. This chap was from Delhi and the bill was from some XYZ mobile shop in Delhi itself. On calling the numbers mentioned on the bill which was duly signed and stamped, it was revealed that it was a residential number of an old couple.

I called Bhushan and quickly understood that he has been doing this with other members as well. When I warned him about raising an alarm, he deposited the depreciated amount for an unwarranted phone in my bank account and tried to convince me that he was cheated as well. I doubt his statements and would encourage people to check bills before finalizing any deal.
 
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I thought everyone asked for bill and adhaar proof when buying phones from olx? genuine persons would not shy away from giving personal identification proof.

Also, another olx scam. People would list bike/car for very attractive rates and when potential buyer calls the number, they say they have many enquiries and the vehicle is almost gone and they would reserve the vehicle if buyer deposited small amount - say 5k.

Once amount is deposited, all contact gets cut off. I though this is too obvious a scam but one of my friend fell for it. Guess greed has too much power
 
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Once we submit our under warranty phone to service centers they ask bill copy and then they take a xerox of it and attach it to our query form and then forward.
Behind they do all background checks like the verification of the shop (if it really exists, if yes then the imei no and invoice no. if its matching), verifying the phones imei from their blacklist etc etc. checks. and only upon successful passing through this process our phone goes to the end technician for rectification and all this take approx 7 days or depends.
Hence they quote...you will get your phone in next 15 days or so as the verification itself takes a lot of time.

So fooling around in recent times is a strict no no for both the parties as in either way the phone will get blacklisted.

So if you have accidentally bumped into such phone better get it repaired from local shopwallah or dump it and buy a new genuine one.
 
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I know someone from Delhi who used to do something similar. He used to buy phones from OLX, then create bills from one of his friend's shop and sell those phones to customers who would think it was a near new piece as the new bills carried a date of 15-30 days ago.
If ever a customer came to find out about the fake bills, the friend who owned the shop would feign ignorance.
 
Also, making a fake bill is not difficult. All you need is a clean scan of the original, some photoshop skills, and some luck!
 
The scammers must have crated a fake bill from original letterhead or create own letterhead based on original ones as lookalike.
 
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