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Kundapur: A woman from Korteshwar, near Kundapura, lost a total of Rs 7.75 Lakh from her bank account to online scamsters pretending to be Patanjali’s online business representatives. A complaint in this regard was lodged with the Cyber, Economic and Narcotics (CEN) police station in Udupi.
The victim, Anuradha Holla (39), wife of Vasudeva Holla from Koteshwar, wanted to start her own Ayurvedic dispensary. She registered herself online with ‘Patanjali’ after seeing an advertisement on August 9, 2018.
She was later contacted by two persons who sought few documents from her as part of the registration formalities. On August 13, Anuradha was asked to transfer a sum of Rs 50,000 as registration fees to an account with a nationalised bank in Haridwar, which she did unsuspectingly. On September 1, she was again asked to transfer a sum of Rs 2.3 Lakh and Rs 2.5 Lakh as a security deposit and purchase of Ayurvedic products respectively. Then again on October 15, she was asked to deposit a sum of Rs 1.1 Lakh as a Yoga training security deposit. She then received two more calls-on October 26 to deposit Rs 80,000 for VAT and on October 30 to deposit Rs 55,000, which she did online.
Then, when Anuradha tried to call them, she got no response at all. It was then that she realised that she had been conned by people posing to be Patanjali Ayurveda’s representatives.
