How a Mumbai-based gang cheated Urban Company of lakhs by booking their services, claiming repeated refunds

The modus operandi

On the modus operandi, the police officer said, “An unknown accused would book a haircutting or massage service from Urban Company (UC) and later say they are unhappy with the service and seek a refund.”

When asked if they would take UC credit points instead of money back, the members of the gang would agree. On the Urban Company platform, one UC point is equal to Re 1. “So, if they were to be refunded Rs 500, they would get 500 UC points,” the officer added.

“It takes nearly 30 seconds for the platform to take cognisance of the UC points when an attempt is made to use it for a service. Taking advantage of this time lag, the accused would login from four different phones using the same credentials and book one service each. Since it takes 30 seconds for the system to realise that the points have been used by one phone, it would approve all the four requests,” the officer said.

The officer then added, “Once all the four services are approved, the scamsters would seek refunds for each of the services by citing unhappiness over the service. So, now, instead of 500 UC points, they have 2,000 points. The scamsters would once again book services from the four phones and cancel them and ask for UC points. In this way, the gang managed to accumulate lakhs of UC points,” the officer explained.

Extracting money but not using service

In order to get money out of the accumulated points, the accused would book an expensive service by using UC points and ask the service partner to meet them at a particular location and not at their home.

When a customer uses UC points to book a service, a partner is also paid in UC points. The officer said, “Once at the said location, the members of this gang would tell the partners that they do not need the service but would ask them to punch in the OTP. They would then ask the service partners to transfer 50 percent of the charges to them through UPI.”

The officer added, “The partners stood to gain as they would not have to provide the service or spend money by travelling but also get to keep 50 per cent of the amount.”

As per the police, the scam went on until some service partners associated with Urban Company tipped off the company about it and subsequently, the company went through its records. It also managed to zero in on seven such accounts that had collectively made Rs 9.87 lakh by duping the company.

An officer from Parksite police station in Vikhroli, where the FIR has been registered, said they have booked the accused on charges of cheating. “The company has provided some details linked to the accused and we should be able to arrest them soon,” said an officer from the Parksite police station.