Mysuru: The Udayagiri Police have arrested four persons for cheating an e-commerce company by claiming ‘deficiency of service’. The arrested have been identified as 24-year-old Abhilash, 21-year-old Anand, 20-year-old Venkatesh and Chandrashekar (age not known).

The case came to light on Nov. 3 after Amazon e-commerce Company’s Marketing Manager Nishanth Sharma lodged a complaint at Udayagiri Police Station. A team led by Inspector P.P Santhosh arrested the accused yesterday. They have now been produced before a court.

The modus operandi is that once the product is booked online and once it is delivered after payments are made, the accused called the company representatives claiming that they have got empty boxes. Worried about reputation, the e-commerce Company replaces the “empty boxes” with genuine products.

According to the complaint, the trio cheated Amazon up to the tune of Rs. 4 lakh. Mobile phones that were used for the fraud have been recovered from the accused.

The accused had floated a private company “E-commerce” and had registered with Amazon under different e-mail IDs and had opened different accounts. The company was floated to supply iPhones, refrigerators and other gadgets to the public. Once the company was registered, it was connected to three bank accounts to look genuine and to avoid detection.

They then booked an iPhone 7 that is worth Rs. 45,000. Following the product delivery notification by Amazon, they paid Rs. 45,000 and got the phone delivered to their address. They later called the company officials and claimed that they had got empty iPhone box. Amazon then replaced the ‘empty’ box with another brand-new iPhone.

The accused ordered two more phones and other expensive gadgets and even threatened to file cases in consumer court for “service deficiency” and also threatened to send them a lawyer notice. Fearing for their reputation, Amazon replaced the products twice. The con job was, however, caught for the third time and the complaint was filed.

Inspector Santosh told Star of Mysore that cases under Section 420 of IPC and Sections 66 C and D under IT Act have been registered against the conmen.