Bengaluru man escapes being scammed for Rs 10,000 after posting an ad for iPad on Olx

Unacademy SVP Hardik Pandya and a screenshot of the conversation with the alleged scammer. (Image credit: @hvpandya/X)

A man in Bengaluru narrowly escaped being scammed after he posted an ad for an iPad on Olx. The alleged scammer tried to coax a senior vice president of Unacademy into paying him Rs 10,000 pretending to have mistakenly sent him extra money by UPI using fake screenshots.

Taking to X, Hardik Pandya wrote the incident happened on Wednesday morning. "Posted an ad for an iPad on OLX. Scammer gets in touch, takes it to WhatsApp, and offers to transfer money instantly."

Sharing screenshots from the conversation, Pandya showed how the conman alias Dilip Vikas first pretended to transfer Rs 26,000 into his account -- Rs 10,000 more than the agreed amount. Vikas also sent screenshots of the transaction, requesting Pandya to return the extra amount.

Interestingly, however, despite the screenshots and Vikas's claims, when Pandya checked, he had not received any money except the Re 1 that Vikas had sent to confirm the account details.

UPI scam from this morning

Posted an ad for an iPad on OLX.

Related stories

• 
  Senior Ola executives face harassment complaint after engineer’s death, challenges FIR in court
• 
  Bengaluru’s traffic-free roads surprise commuters during Diwali: 'Reached 14 km in 20 mins'
• 
  Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw hits back at DK Shivakumar over Bengaluru roads: 'Both Mohandas Pai and I...'

Scammer gets in touch, takes it to WhatsApp and offers to transfer money instantly.

Then does this — pic.twitter.com/xWeeYyCrHA

— Hardik Pandya (@hvpandya) March 20, 2024

"Obviously, it doesn’t take much to know this raised all the alarms from the get go. But the imitation transaction messages sent manually by him was the funniest part!" Pandya said, tagging the Bengaluru Police and the commissioner.

Reacting to his post, several X users lauded Pandya's wits and shared similar experiences.

"Facebook marketplace has worked for me but yes, you have to be very careful on OLX. Check the profile for the date joined, older the better. English is another major check," wrote Vineet (@Vynyth). "This is nothing new. had put up an ad to sell my bicycle three years back, and I faced the exact same thing even then. Most will try to gain sympathy or authority by posing as army/police officers. The naive me had almost fallen for this trap back then," added Manish Pokhrel (@manishpoko).

Read more: Bengaluru woman foils 'Indigo' scam attempt after cheats cancel Rs 15,600 tickets: 'Horrible'