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AHMEDABAD: A Thaltej resident ended up paying Rs 61,000 for two pizzas, after losing this whopping sum to online cheats.

Rushay Shah, 27, a resident of Thaltej, on Monday filed a complaint of cheating with Vastrapur police, stating that some online cheats withdrew Rs 60,885 from his bank account after he was approached by a man who impersonated a customer service representative of a food delivery application, with whom Shah had lodged a complaint about receiving two inedible pizzas.

Inspector S R Gamit of Vastrapur police said that Shah, who runs a restaurant in Sanand , had on October 4 ordered two pizzas from the food delivery app from his wife’s mobile phone. When the pizza arrived, Shah found they were not edible and called the helpline of the delivery app, but the call was not answered.

After a while, he got a call from a mobile phone number, and a man who identified himself as Dipak Sharma asked if he wanted pizzas or his money refunded.

Shah said he wanted the fresh pizzas, but the man told him that they had no policy such but could to refund the money. The man told Shah that he would send him a link on which Shah would have to enter his name, mobile phone number and Google ID.

After Shah followed these instructions, the man told him to send a particular message to another cellphone number thrice . As Shah sent the message to the given number, he found that Rs 5,000 had been debited from his bank account, said Gamit.

Shah told the man that Rs 5,000 had been deducted from his account but the man told him that it could not be so. Late on Sunday night, Shah’s wife received a call from same man, Sharma. His wife connected Shah and Sharma on a conference call, and Sharma again told them to send a particular message to another number.

After Shah followed these instructions again, Rs 55,885 was debited from his bank account in six transactions. Shah called him and told him money had been deducted from his account but the man had disconnected the phone.

Shah then approached Vastrapur police and file a complaint of cheating and breach of trust besides charges under the Information Technology Act.

