Fake insurance racket, real risks hit Hyderabad’s commercial drivers
The Hindu
Fake vehicle insurance policy scam targeting commercial vehicle owners in Hyderabad uncovered, leading to multiple arrests and pending cases.
At the transport adda in Shabad mandal of Hyderabad, 45-year-old Allada Peer Reddy waited in excitement. An executive from a food and beverage company was arriving to onboard some light goods vehicle owners as vendors to support their growing business in the State.
However, his excitement quickly turned into worry after the executive informed Mr. Reddy about his invalid vehicle insurance. All it took was a quick scan of the QR code printed on the policy document, which looked perfectly original.
A resident of Hayathabad, Mr. Reddy had recently purchased a pre-owned Ashok Leyland Dost bearing the number ‘AP 09 TB 1059’ and a ‘Reliance General Insurance’ policy, hoping to find a job with the e-commerce company.
However, he did not expect to become a victim of a vehicle insurance policy scam that has targeted several unsuspecting commercial vehicle owners like him with ‘too good to be true’ discounts.
Panicked, Mr. Reddy made a call to an executive at Reliance General Insurance and narrated his story. P. Mrinal, working as Risk Control Unit (RCU) Manager at the company promptly entered the details shared by the victim only to find no policy was issued to him.
Upon meeting Mr. Reddy, he was shocked to see the insurance policy neatly secured in a transparent sheet, replicating the original perfectly but with one key mistake. “The insurance had ‘service tax’ instead of ‘GST’ on it, which cleared it was forged version of a 2017 policy model. Moreover, while the scammers were efficient enough to generate a QR code, it was linked to a random website and not the insurance policy,” Mrinal explained.
Mr. Reddy was not alone. Many of his friends including Chakali Balraj, 32 and Devarakonda Mahendar, 25, operating in the same field had purchased multiple ‘Reliance General Insurance’ policies, none of which were issued by the company.
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