Coimbatore : A city doctor has been cheated by a person impersonating as the Secretary of Coimbatore Malayali Samajam. He also introduced himself as the Programme Co-ordinator of the event organised by CMS where a statue of Dr APJ Adul Kalam is to be unveiled before he sought Rs 5,000 as advance to an advertisement that he was supposedly publishing in a souvenir.

Dr. V.Karthikeyan, an ENT specialist, told The Covai Post, that a person who called himself Sashidharan had contacted him as a former patient and also the Secretary of CMS . He sought an advance of Rs 5,000 as an advance to publish an advertisement of his hospital, in CMS’s souveneir. The person convinced the doctor about his identity and gave an account number to deposit the money via demand draft and stated that the souveneir’s copy and acknowledgement for the amount received would be sent to the doctor’s email id. The fraudster had also given a false mobile number as his contact.

The doctor said that his friends tried to verify the information given to him along and also tried to track the caller’s name and designation but before they could get back with the details, the doctor transferred the amount to the given account number since the caller was very convincing. But when they came to know that he was an imposter and a fraud, the doctor has filed a complaint with the police with an intention to spread awareness on these kinds of scams.

The Covai Post contacted Mr. R. Sashidharan, who is the real Secretary of Kerala Club of Coimbatore, an entirely different association, to get his comments, since his name was used by the fraudster. He confirmed to us there was no such event happening in and around the city and his Club was not organising any statue unveiling event. He also informed that this person had scammed many using his name earlier.

Mr. Sashidharan further stated that the impostor was nabbed by the police earlier when they tracked his whereabouts from the information he had given to the Tamilnadu Mercantile Bank where he had opened an account to defraud several others. He added that the offender had hd returned the money he embezzled from the victims under pressure from the cops. The victims had withdrawn their complaints after the accused was imprisoned but now this person has opened an account with Union Bank of India and is back to scam people again, he added.