I have listed Pari's bicycle for resale on OLX. This is perhaps the 4th bicycle that we are selling on OLX. It is always the same story - we buy her a bike enthusiastically, she enthusiastically rides it 3-4 times, soon the novelty wears off and the poor thing lies in the shed gathering dust. Once in a blue moon, I pester the husband to get the cycle serviced, the tyres inflated and the chain polished - Pari promises to ride it more often - but before long, the promise and the cycle are both forgotten. It helps that we are always able to get rid of the current cycle very quickly on OLX, and that we are able to order a new one even more quickly on Amazon or Flipkart.
The present bicycle is about 3 years old and has been used as many times. I have been waiting patiently for the past couple of years for Pari to get back to cycling, but kind of losing hope now. Yesterday, I finally got the husband to click a few pictures and list the cycle for resale. True to OLX's reputation, messages are pouring in and the phone hasn't stopped ringing since the post went live. Today, a person called me to buy the cycle, displaying a great sense of urgency. He asked me for my phone number which is linked to bank accounts to transfer the money. I insisted that he looks at the cycle before making a payment, but he mentioned that he runs a cycle repair shop and is happy with what he has seen in the pictures. I sent him the DH's phone number. Promptly, he started sending QR codes, insisting that we scan those to receive the money. The husband refused to scan the QR which immediately showed up as a payment link. The person on the other side kept arguing that that he doesn't have gpay or UPI but is paying through some card machine. This went on for a while, the guy just didn't stop calling us. After a while, 1 rupee was credited in our account and he called back saying that it worked because we had scanned the code. DH was extremely annoyed and gave him an earful, after which he became abusive. I blocked his calls and messages. and reported him to whatsapp. Tried reporting him to OLX multiple times- the functionality just didn't work. Opened the govt cyber crime reporting portal, filled the longish form, attached pic as proof when the site randomly misbehaved and all my information was lost. I remember facing the same issue earlier as well when I tried to report a cyber crime - some guy sending lewd whatsapp messages on my phone.
This is one of my 'Janahit me jaari' posts. I will try again tomorrow to report this on the cyber crime helpline. Hopefully, the govt would fix their website and not wait for people to get frustrated and give up on reporting such incidents.
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