Why people buy online? It is not just about convenience and choice. The option to return the goods is also a big attraction. No questions asked. One can just return it or ask for a replacement. Most of the e-commerce firms let people return the things they bought at no cost to the consumer.

A crafty customer in Hyderabad cleverly used this option to deceive e-commerce majors Amazon and Flipkart. Not once or twice, this customer duped the e-commerce players several times over and made a gain of Rs 55 lakh over a period of time. The cops, however, nabbed him and unearthed the modus operandi.

Hyderabad police claimed that P V R Reddy of Vanasthalipuram had ganged up with his kin to organise the elaborate crime that mostly involved electronic products such as motherboards. He would order the products online. After receiving it, he would remove an important component and contact the firm that the product is not working.

The company would promptly send a courier boy to collect the ‘faulty’ product and replace it with a new one. Not satisfied again, he would ask the firm to cancel the purchase and return the amount.

Acting on a complaint from Flipkart, the sleuths have kept an eye on Reddy’s movements and nabbed him. What they found with the accused baffled them. Though it’s not uncommon for people to return the faulty products, the sheer size of rejections made by Reddy and his kin flummoxed both the police and the e-commerce firm.

The cops seized 120 SIM cards that were taken from different telecom service providers using fake IDs. They recovered four computer processors and a couple of computer storage devices.

The police have said that Flipkart was duped for Rs 20 lakh and Amazon for Rs 16.17 lakh.

“After receiving the article, the gang removes an important component from it or replaces it with a duplicate one. They would then lodge a complaint that the product is substandard or not up to the specifications,” a police official said in a statement.

“The firm would promptly send a boy to pick it up and replace it or refund the money. The accused would repeat this more than once and sell those products or components to their own customers. They gained about Rs 55 lakh,” he said.

The police found that the accused had spent Rs 10 lakh. The police are on the look out for the other accused in the crime.