FIA starts action against online shopping stores | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

FIA starts action against online shopping stores

Pakistan Press Foundation

ISLAMABAD – The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has started action against the fraudulent online shopping stores on consumer complaints.

The action has been taken by National Response Centre for Cyber Crime (NR3C), a wing of FIA, dedicated to fight cyber crime.

According to officials, on public complaints the department initiated the action against the virtual stores. First the accused is monitored and if found suspicious, further action is taken, which could result in arrest of the suspect and closing of virtual store.

Recently, the department took action against an e-commerce store Saqiscity.com.

There was uproar on social media when the site failed to deliver orders to customers despite receiving payments. On public complaints NR3C started action against the website.

“This website is being used an online fraudulent shopping transaction from the innocent peoples, hence FIA Cyber Crime Circle Karachi arrested the owner and registered case FIR No 37/2015 of this alleged website”.

The agency will investigate and then initiate a legal proceeding.

“We have initiated the proceedings and only a court of law can recover the money,” the official said. During the last couple of years, Pakistan’s e-commerce market is expanding like never before.

According to industry representatives, the present market is valued at over $60 million and doubling in size every year.

Analysts predict that the trend will continue during the next three to five years.

They believe by 2020 the sector will surpass the $1 billion milestone.

But with this tremendous growth there are challenges. Being new in this business many entrepreneurs cannot keep their expenses low and end up selling cheap and below standard items to remain in business. This trend is negatively affecting the thinking of online consumers towards local virtual stores.

If this trend continues the sector’s projected growth may affect. In the meantime, some frauds have also started targeting innocent people through websites.

According to officials presently the number of complaints is very low as people don’t know the procedure of registering a complaint of cyber crime. But in coming days if more people contact the department, it would be hard for the department to respond due to lack of resources.

With headquarters in Islamabad and sub offices in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Quetta, it is hard for the department to respond to all the complaints.

Many believe in order to reap true potential of the sector; the government should devise regulations.

The Nation