Noida association catches conman

Anjali Choudhary

The Noida Computer Traders Association (NCTA) recently apprehended a man who
was trying to con partners in the area. In a sting operation the association
members caught Raj Dev Dass, who was imperson-ating as an HCL employee.

The association members allege that Dass was trying to dupe Noida dealers for
the second time when he was trapped. Earlier Dass had conned SK Singh of Mega
Computers, who is also the secretary of the association, when he purchased an HP
laptop from him in lieu of a fake cheque.

Within 20 days of the first strike Dass again came back to Noida's IT hub,
however this time he was not as lucky as the police caught up with him.
Recalling the chain of events Singh said, “I had been dealing with Dass for
quite a long time but have never faced any payment issue with him, except that
he was a fussy customer. It is only this time around that he insisted on paying
by cheque instead of the usual cash payments that he made.”

After duping Singh, Dass landed at Uptime Compu-ter. However, because of the
diligence and coordina-tion of the Noida associa-tion Dass was caught before he
could weave his web of frauds any further. Saji Varghese of Uptime Com-puters
said, “Dass came to my shop enquiring about a Lenovo laptop, and he wanted to
make payment for the same by cheque. I would have sold him the laptop but when
he sho-wed me his HCL visiting card, somewhere at the back of my mind the Mega
Computer incident flashed, in which an HCL employee by the name of Raj Dev Dass
was involved.”

Varghese added, “After seeing his visiting card I immediately contacted
Singh and confirmed Dass's description, follow-ing that I requested Dass to
come again in the evening when I could hand over the laptop to him.”

The Noida association members than laid a trap to catch hold of Dass, as
Singh and other association mem-bers had already gathered at Uptime Computers.
They called the cops and handed Dass over to them. Dass used to be an employee
of HCL two year back but he still carries around his visiting card of HCL BPO,
SME Operations.

Soon after the duping Singh he got in touch with the NCTA, who flashed out
the details of the incident to all its members.