It has come to light that customers were cheated through a fake website created using the hotel's photo and logo. The MIDC police in Andheri have registered a case in this matter and the police are conducting further investigation based on the information about the bank transactions of the defrauded customer.
On the complaint of Ganesh Bhandari (64), general manager of Sai Palace Hotel, the MIDC police have registered a case for cheating, impersonation, creating fake logos. Ganesh Bhandari owns a hotel in Andheri. He had registered the hotel on Google and created a website so that the hotel rooms and auditorium could be registered. People who created the fake website used the hotel's photo and logo to attract customers to rent rooms.
A customer named Vidan Shah came to Bhandari's hotel on June 24. He said that he had rented two rooms in a hotel online. For this, Shah had also paid INR 7,000 through UPI. Shah had transacted using the URL link. When Bhandari verified that URL, he reached the website of another hotel called Saipalace. But when they inspected the website, the pictures and logo of Bhandari's hotel were used.
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Following which, in the month of July, four to five customers came to his hotel. They had also transacted through the same website. When Bhandari asked his technical department about the related website, he said that a fake website was created using the hotel's photo, logo and location. After finding out that around INR 60,000 were taken from various customers through this website, Bhandari lodged a complaint with the MIDC police in Andheri. Accordingly, the police registered a case in this matter. The police have asked for information about the bank accounts where the customers have paid money and the companies that provide internet services and the investigation is going on.
304 percent increase in number of fake websites
Group IB recently released its report 'Digital Risk Trends, 2023'. According to this report, there has been a 304 percent increase in cases of creating fake websites in the name of companies or organisations. Apart from this, there has been a 62 percent increase in websites used for 'phishing' cyber fraud. There is also an increase in the number of fake pages created in the name of financial institutions. Its proportion is about 74 percent.
The number of fake websites created in the name of companies also increased by 162 percent in 2022. From January to May, 2023, 51 cases of creating fake websites have been registered in Mumbai. The police have succeeded in solving only one case. One of them has been arrested. 20 cases of fraud have also been registered through 'phishing'. Only four crimes have been solved. Five accused have been arrested in these cases.
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