A 22-year-old engineering student who hired an escort ended up losing Rs 16,998 to robbers.
Madhav a civil engineering student at SAL Engineering College, looked up escort services in Ahmedabad on Google.
Madhav, who also works for a private firm and earns Rs 12,000 per month, discovered a link that led him to a Whatsapp chat. When he inquired about the rates, he was told that he would be charged based on the amount of time he spent with the escort.
Madhav chose the service for an hour at a cost of Rs2000. He was asked to pay a Rs 100 registration fee via UPI, followed by a Rs 300 fee for other charges.
The crooks shared the location of ‘OYO Queen Sunrise’, a hotel near Hirawadi BRTS bus stop in Thakkarnagar, and asked Madhav to reach there within 30 minutes. He was told to make a Whatsapp call on a given number from outside the hotel.
When Madhav arrived at the hotel and made the call, the caller demanded Madhav to transfer Rs 1600 as a security deposit via UPI. He was forced to pay more for code verification and other such services. Madhav had already lost Rs 16,998 when he realised he had been duped.
Madhav then approached the cops and filed a FIR with the Ahmedabad police’s cybercrime cell.