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Pune teenager promised date by online dating portal, duped of ₹3.6 lakh
The police are on the lookout for the person/people who had posted the advertisement.
A Class 12 student of a local junior college in Pune was duped of ₹3.6 lakh on a mobile application, which claimed to set up the teenager on a blind date with woman for a fee.
A case was registered against unidentified people at the Chatuhshrungi police station. The teenager, who is the complainant, was duped of ₹3,64,070 on the mobile application, Locanto, which claims to be an online classified advertisement platform.
The police are on the lookout for the persons who had posted the advertisement.
The online dating platform asked for a deposit in return for an access to the services of the portal.
The online transactions took place between November 17, 2018 and November 27, 2018, according to the police. “He signed up on the dating platform, which ensured a female date. The complainant used netbanking on his father’s account and since he used to operate his father’s phone, he got access to the one time passwords (OTP) for the transactions. The parents realised that the money was missing after the transactions came through,” said Vaishali Galande, police inspector (crime), Chatuhshrungi police station, who is investigating the case.
The case was registered under Sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) and 420 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 66(c) and 66(d) of the Information Technology Act.
Earlier cases
In the last week of January, a woman, who had moved to Pune from Chennai, filed a case against her former live-in partner, after he posted her contact details on porn websites and portals like Locanto.
In another case involving the online platform Locanto, a married man from Sangvi, was threatened by a woman he had met on Locanto and had a sexual relationship with. She had extorted ₹50,000 from him after demanding and accepting ₹2,500 for an intercourse.
