Pune: Eleven former employees of a software-cum-online advertisement company are being investigated in a fake leads and inquiries scam. They have been booked on the charge of cheating their former company of Rs 40 lakh.
The Pune cyber police said the alleged fraud came to light when the company, located at Bhosalenagar off Ganeshkhind Road, checked all the leads and inquiries it had worked on, and found many of them to be fake.
Meenal Patil, senior cyber police inspector, said: “The company is into software publishing, consultancy and production. It also deals with online advertisement and garnering customers for its clients. The company provides services to US-based insurance companies, e-commerce and product companies among others. For this purpose, the company’s employees send emails/links to prospective clients and generate leads and inquiries for the company’s customers. The company’s clients pay for this work of generating leads and inquiries.”
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A company official, who did not wish to be named, told TOI, “The 11 former employees had generated leads and inquiries to meet their own targets. However, they ended up causing immense damage to the company’s revenue earnings as well as reputation.”
“On detecting the fraud, the company dismissed the 11 employees from service,” Patil said.
“In this case, the 11 employees are accused of preparing three bogus emails and generating 2,700 fake leads and inquiries. However, the company’s clients realised that the leads were fake, and stopped payment of Rs 40 lakh to the company. The company claimed that this cheating caused it a loss of Rs 40 lakh,” Patil said.
A case for offences punishable under sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) and under the provisions of the Information Technology Act has been registered against the former employees.
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