The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Cooking gas cylinder con men on the prowl

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 13, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Cooking gas cylinder con men on the prowl

N. Ravi Kumar

Customers duped by tricksters in the guise of delivery boys Modus operandi: the con men turn up immediately after a cylinder is delivered and inform that it has a leak, and they have to come to take it back and bring a replacement

Stay alert against conmen Cylinders also stolen from the tricycles of the delivery boys Stolen cylinders invariably found their way to tea stalls

CHENNAI: The next time someone approaches you telling you there is a leak in the cylinder delivered a short while ago and volunteers to take it and bring a replacement, insist on checking the bona fides of the person posing as the gas delivery boy.

If you are not convinced about the person's status or want to be doubly sure, just call up your gas distributor and check on the facts. Failure to do so could leave you poorer by a cylinder — with the deposit it works out to nearly Rs.1,200 — as a number of households in the city have found to their dismay recently.

It's time cooking gas users stay alert against conmen, as sources among LPG distributors say that the robbers are adopting new tricks to relieve the households of the cylinders.

The modus operandi, explains a distributor in Central Chennai, is simple. The con men, in the guise of delivery boys, go to the house minutes after it takes supply of a fresh cylinder and inform the residents that there is a leak in the equipment and they have come to take it back. The replacement? It will be sent soon.

The latest in the series of such incidents, the distributor told The Hindu, was reported last week from Kilpauk. He adds that there have been similar complaints from customers in T. Nagar, Mylapore and Abhiramapuram. This is not the only trick played on households using cooking gas, as there have been cases recently in which the `delivery boy' fled after taking money for the cylinder, telling the residents of the multi-storeyed apartments that the cylinder is in the ground floor and he will fetch it up shortly.

Lifted from tricycles

Cylinders, says another distributor in south Chennai, are also stolen from the tricycles of the delivery boys.

One reason for this is the ban imposed by the residents' association in high-rise apartments on taking the vehicles inside the complex.

In most complexes, the delivery boys are also not allowed to use the lift, which results in more transaction time for them.

Voicing concern at the increase in such crimes, the distributor says in several cases the households did not lodge a complaint with the police. But in cases, where a complaint was preferred, the police tend to pick up the staff who delivered the cylinder to the household and allegedly harass them and the distributor concerned. Stating that the police recently caught a person suspected of indulging in duping the households and seized 52 cylinders from him in Nungambakkam, the distributor says, the stolen cylinders invariably found their way to tea stalls.

The practice in the industry, say distributors, is to provide a replacement first and then collect the defective cylinder.

During such calls, the delivery boys carry a fresh cylinder, rubber tube and a regulator.

`No defective cylinders'

Noting that there are little chances of the distributors delivering a defective cylinder, they say that the delivery boys check for any leaks at the time of supply.

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