Chennai: A strange incident has become a topic of discussion online, in which an Instagram celebrity who shared their address asking for a free sweet box for the Diwali festival was left unsettled when goods worth lakhs of rupees flooded in on ‘cash on delivery,’ forcing them to vacate the house and flee.
Veeramani is from Anupanadi in Madurai. More than one lakh people follow him, as he became popular on Instagram through his humorous Madurai regional dialect speech.
In this situation, as a way of celebrating the upcoming Diwali festival, Veeramani shared his home address and phone number on social media and posted, “Those who wish to send me a sweet box can freely send it to this address.”
Seeing this, some mischievous netizens, instead of sending him sweets, began using his address to order many expensive items online in ‘cash on delivery’ mode.
This online game, which initially started with small items like milk packets, grew dramatically in the following days. A mobile phone worth Rs. 1.74 lakh, a 100-inch LED TV, a washing machine, a refrigerator, and other heavy household appliances arrived one after another in front of his house and were unloaded from a tempo. Veeramani, who first took it as a joke, later began to understand the seriousness of it. Deliveries kept piling up every day from morning until night.
Before the arriving delivery workers, he said, “I did not order these items; someone has done this as a prank,” and sent them back, but by then Veeramani was left gasping for breath. He also had to endure harsh abuse from the delivery workers, who had carried the goods for several kilometers only to return disappointed. As the peak of this incident, items such as a two-wheeler, an ambulance, and a JCB worth Rs. 35 lakh were also ordered to Veeramani’s address on a cash-on-delivery basis. Not only that, rumors have been spread on social media that he had also ordered a military cannon worth Rs. 70 crore.
Realizing that the situation had become serious, the police contacted Veeramani and began investigating the fake orders. Frightened by this, he made an emotional appeal on social media through a video, saying, “I will not ask anyone for anything anymore; please stop the fake orders.” However, the online pranksters did not stop, and parcels kept arriving continuously, leaving Veeramani mentally distressed. With no other option, he has locked his house and left.
This incident involving an Insta celebrity has become a topic of discussion online after they shared personal details in public, hoping to get a free sweet box for Diwali. It has also caused a huge stir among internet users. Notably, this incident serves as an important warning about how dangerous it is to share personal details such as home address and phone number publicly on social media.