Himachal woman loses over Rs 21 lakh in 'franchise fraud'

A woman here was allegedly duped of over Rs 21 lakh by online fraudsters on the pretext of providing her with a franchise of a company, police said on Friday. Monica, a resident of Hamirpur’s Dalchera, in her complaint said that in February she a Noida-based company’s manager to get a franchise of the business after seeing their advertisement on Facebook.

A meeting was held on a video call and a deal was finalised to give the franchise of the company to the victim.

The victim said that she was told that the turnover of the company was around Rs 400 crore and lured by the opportunity to get franchisee of the company, she deposited Rs 21.64 lakhs to the account given by the company employees.

However, once the money was deposited, she did not get any response from the manager and other employees following which she contacted the police.

Superintendent of Police (Hamirpur) Aakriti Sharma said that a case has been registered at Police Chowki Deotsidh and an investigation is underway.