The Scariest Scams: How Impersonation and Fear Play Out

Sometimes the scariest things start out so mundane. Just an afternoon. A knock at the door. A few official-sounding questions. People talking with that kind of confidence that just makes you pause. That’s how easily your guard drops.

Actor Ankiita Bhargava recently went through one of those moments at her parents’ home. It was deeply unsettling. She’s left with this real concern, about how easily older people can just become targets for these kinds of scams.

Talking about it, Ankiita explained the whole thing. Two men showed up. They were pretending to be Crime Branch officials from Ahmedabad. They looked incredibly convincing. Totally prepared before they started talking to the family.

“They were impersonating Crime Branch officials,” she told Hindustan Times. “And they had their homework done. It was honestly scary.”

How it all unfolded felt strange. They didn’t just start asking random questions. They first approached the woman who lived next door to her parents. The neighbor who had moved away last year, apparently knew Ankiita’s family pretty well. There’s a young woman with a dog living in that apartment now.

“The last person who stayed next to my parents’ house had shifted out last year. They knew them.”

These scammers went straight to her neighbor’s place first. They gave her all this technical jargon. Then they made her sign a handwritten paper in Gujarati.

Ankiita said the neighbor probably signed it because she felt nervous. Or maybe she just assumed it was some sort of routine paperwork.

Meanwhile, the men also came to Ankiita’s father. They started asking questions about that former neighbor.

“They told us our ex-neighbour was involved in some fraud in Ahmedabad. They were looking for him.”

They asked if they knew where he was. Then they told her father to sign a written statement. Something saying they had nothing to do with it.

But something immediately felt wrong to Ankiita. A big sense of unease. She noticed the document they wanted signed was written entirely in Gujarati. A language her family just doesn’t read. They don't understand it at all.

“I told them we neither read nor understand Gujarati,” she recalled. “He tried explaining everything verbally in Hindi. But I asked him, ‘How do I know what you’re saying and what’s written is the same thing?’”

She wanted to double-check everything. So she sent a photo of the document to her mother-in-law. She even tried using ChatGPT to try and decode some parts. But they couldn't figure out the actual contents. Just a few names and flat numbers. Nothing more.

That’s when she just flat-out refused to let her father sign anything.

“I told him, ‘Please write it in Hindi or English first. Then we’ll sign,’” she said. Her father just shrugged. He said he didn't know those languages. That’s when she told them clearly: nobody was signing anything unless they actually understood what they were signing.

Later on, the neighbor finally came back. She told them she had already signed the document. She said she had seen similar scam stories online. After getting some legal advice, she went and filed a complaint at Oshiwara Police Station.

When they spoke to the police, things got clearer. They checked the records. They confirmed that no one from Crime Branch Ahmedabad had actually come to Mumbai for any kind of investigation. Nothing was happening.

Ankiita felt the whole episode was deeply disturbing. Especially when you think about how these frauds are set up.

Apparently, this is just the opening act. They get people to sign some random paper. Then later, they sneak in more details. They threaten you, saying you’ve signed an undertaking, and now you owe money. Or the Crime Branch is going to come after you.

She thought about her father’s reaction too. He genuinely believed the document was harmless.

“My father later told me he would have signed it because they were only asking him to confirm he didn’t know where the neighbour was. It didn’t feel like a big deal to him,” she admitted.

It just makes you think about how much older people still trust people so easily. It’s sad. They really have to be careful now.

Ankita Bhargava is known for her acting work. She plays Princess Unnati in Dekha Ek Khwaab . Latika in Ek Nayi Pehchaan . Shipra in Kasautii Zindagii Kay . And so on. She’s done a lot of ad films too. Plus roles in films like Akira and Action Jackson . She married Karan Patel back in 2015. They have a child. Life is complicated enough without these kinds of scares creeping in.