Three held for cheating through lapsed insurance policies

Three men have been arrested for cheating people on the pretext of getting refund of their lapsed insurance policies from insurance companies by charging cash from them as service tax, police said on Tuesday.

Amit Khanna, 40, Akshay Sharma, 21 -- both residents of Model Town -- were arrested on Monday along with Bhupender Sharma, 25.

"They used to cheat gullible people on the pretext of getting refund of their lapsed insurance policies from insurance companies by charging cash from them as service tax, service charge and processing fee," a police official said.

Following a recent complaint by Manju Grover, a resident of New Rajender Nagar, police managed to catch the three.

"Grover was induced in 2012 by some agents to invest in insurance policies on the pretext of handsome returns. She was told that if she purchases 4-5 policies of various companies, she would start getting handsome returns after five months, which is sufficient to pay yearly premium of these policies," the official said.

The police official said Grover then purchased five policies worth over Rs.3 lakh from various insurance companies in 2012 and 2013.

"Thereafter, as promised, no profit accrued after five months of purchase. When she did not get any profit, she did not pay the renewal premium and these policies lapsed."

"Again some agents started calling her to get her policies revived. In the hope of reviving, and of getting refund of her money, she was duped by agents of over Rs.2 lakh again," the official said.

Police said the cheats still did not stop and demanded another cheque of Rs.76,580 as service tax.

She then realised she was being cheated and therefore contacted police.

"They (the three arrested people) used to procure data of lapsed insurance policies from their respective offices and used to contact gullible people to revive their policies and induced them to get refunds from insurance companies.

"Once the customer gets lured by their lucrative proposals, the three used to start extracting money slowly on the pretext of service tax," the official said.