In yet another case of cheating and fraud, the local Chennai IT market has
witnessed one more player closing shop and escaping with the booty. Perhaps for
the first time–a dubious record at that–many end-users have also fallen
victim to the tricks played by the reseller losing over Rs 15 lakh.
Prem, who used to run Insi-ght Technologies in suburban Arumbakkam, closed
the shop during Diwali in a move that surprised many resellers and customers.
While some of them thought that the shop was closed for the festival, others
smelt a rat when the shop didn’t open even after many days. Then the resellers
and customers filed a complaint with the police and Prem was arrested and
produced before the Magistrate, who remanded him to police custody for 15 days.
Prem moved his bail app-lication, which proved to be successful. Meanwhile, the
market is abuzz with rumors that he is back in business and doing it under a
different name.
JCL Systems, S3 Computers, Perfect Computronix, RM Computers, Perfect
Engineers, Globe UPS and Net Links are some of the resellers who lost money in
the recent episode of deceit. Besides, there is a long list of end customers who
are said to have been cheated by Prem. According to market reports, there are 20
com-plaints filed against him by resellers and customers in K8 police station,
in Arumbakkam and in the city Police Commi-ssioner’s office in Egmore.
"Prem had many cases filed under section 420 of IPC by various parties,
but normally the accused will be tried once though there are several 420 cases
against him. Now, he has moved bail and is moving freely in the market,"
said one of the victims.
Prasanna, Senior Executive in JCL, a company which lost Rs 2.75 lakh, said,
"We were supp-lying products regularly to him for the last couple of years.
His outstanding was shooting up and at one stage we decided to collect the dues
before supply-ing further. But, Prem bought time regularly and never showed any
signs of paying. So, we filed a complaint with K8 police station in Arumbakkam
and D1 police station in Tripli-cane, even before he closed shop for Diwali."
Many resellers like Prasanna filed complaints and the issue snowballed.
However, before the police could take action, Prem gave the slip. "We were
determined to trace him and produce him before the court of law. We got
information that Prem had relocated to Porur with the stock and that he was
running the show from an unauthorized place. The police moved swiftly and
arrested him," narrated Prasanna.
"We lost around Rs 70,000 with Insight Technologies but have not filed
any complaint so far," said Ashok Chandan, Director, RM Computers. Added S
Sivakumar, Proprietor, S3 Computers, "For us, it is close to Rs 50,000. IT
business is getting tougher day by day with growing competition and pressure of
meeting margins. We really do not know whom to trust and with whom to do
business."
Pointed out Harish, CEO, Perfect Computronix, "We knew that he would do
this one day or other, as his credit handling was bad. Realizing the situation,
we stopped supply-ing to him and were following up only for payments. He owes us
only a small amount and we never wanted to register any complaint for
this."
The most interesting part of the whole episode is Prem’s style of tricking
the gullible cus-tomers. Being a System Integra-tor, he had many customers for
assembled machines. He would supply the systems that could be sold within a
couple of weeks. He would then go to the customer’s place and take back the
CPU under the pretext of servicing it, but would never give it back.
"I bought a system recently from Prem. It worked well for a few months
before showing errors. I immediately approa-ched Prem, since the PC was under
the warranty period. He attended the call and took the CPU, but did not return
it even after many months. On repea-ted follow-ups, he gave various reasons and
sought time. Now I am shocked to know that he had closed the shop," said T
Rajagopalan, a retired official of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.
Rajagopalan is just one of the many end-users, including com-panies, who had
lost money with Prem. The worst affected is the student community which came to
him after seeing his PC advertisements in the newspapers.
S Gopikrishna
Chennai