Ludhiana resident duped of Rs 4lakh on insurance lapse pretext

LUDHIANA: In yet another case of cyber fraudsters duping city residents, an elderly businessman was duped of Rs 3.66 lakh by cyber fraudsters, who told him that they would discontinue his life insurance policy. Then they got more money from him on the lure of more profit. Police lodged an FIR at Sarabha Nagar police station on Saturday.
An FIR was registered on the complaint of Ravi Kumar Nanda, 64, a businessman from Prakash Colony, Barewal Road.The complaint was lodged in the first week of January this year and an inquiry was marked with the cyber cell of Ludhiana police. Nanda said, "A few years ago, I deposited Rs 50,000 in ICICI bank. At that time I was asked by bank officials if I wanted to pursue an insurance policy but I refused and asked them to get an FD done.
I had almost forgotten about it, until on September 23, 2022, I received a call from a woman who introduced herself as Sandhya Aggarwal of Prudential Life Insurance, ICICI bank." The victim said that the woman told him that he had a policy of Rs 50,000 in the bank but he had not paid installments and therefore the policy would be cancelled .
H e said she also gave him an offer of depositing Rs 1 lakh to continue the policy. “I could not recall at that time that I got an FD done in the respective bank and not any policy.
I fell into the trap and deposited Rs 1 lakh in the given bank account,” he said. A few days later, the woman called again and said if he paid Rs 1.66 lakh more, he would get Rs 6 lakh by December 31. He deposited the money again. “When I did not get Rs 6 lakh on December 31, I called the number of the bank representative but the number was switched off. I realised that I had been duped and then lodged a complaint with the police,” said Nanda.
Police lodged an FIR against the accused, Sandhya Agarwal of Prudential Life Insurance and Ravi Kumar of Nagpur, Maharashtra. Further investigation is on.