Work-from-home scams are becoming rampant. In the past couple of weeks, naive people have lost up to Rs 1 crore to cyber crooks. From 'YouTube channel subscription' to 'movie rating' work-from-home scams, cyber fraudsters are using new ways to fool people and steal their money
A couple from Jamnagar, Gujarat recently lost a total of Rs 1.12 crore to cyber crooks. The couple was reportedly tricked by scammers on the pretext of earning extra income through working from home in the ticketing business.
The couple received an advertising message of a work-from-home opportunity on Telegram which read, "You can earn by sitting at home at your comfort, only you have to give ratings to the movies," read the message they received on the instant messaging platform.
To buy the first bunch of tickets, the frauds sent the victim a coupon of Rs 10,000 to win her confidence. Thereafter, including commission and everything around Rs 99,000 was deposited in her account within some time. The victim earned around Rs 5 lakh of commission by buying tickets and rating the movies.
However, when the woman went to withdraw the money, she was further asked to buy tickets of the same amount for more earnings. The couple ended up investing a total amount of 40 lakh in buying tickets. When the woman tried to withdraw Rs 40 lakh, she was told to pay Rs 70 lakh in advance to withdraw the money.
Afterward, the criminals informed the woman that she could be charged with money laundering for withdrawing such a large amount. To avoid this, they advised her to invest the entire amount in another scheme. The couple followed this suggestion and deposited Rs 1.12 crore and lost it all.
In a similar fraud case, a female MNC executive was allegedly duped of more than Rs 76 lakh by online frauds who promised her high returns on a part-time job of rating movies.
To start rating movies, the account has to be recharged, and she was told that she could withdraw the money after a set is complete. According to police, the woman deposited Rs 76,84,493 in the account on the app before she realised she was duped.
A Karnataka woman was recently duped of more than Rs 8 lakh on the pretext of a work-from-home opportunity that involved subscribing to a YouTube channel. The woman received a WhatsApp message regarding an opportunity to earn money through work from home.
As per the message, the initial proposal was for the woman to only subscribe to a YouTube channel and get Rs 50 per subscription. The woman subscribed to a few YouTube channels and was paid Rs 150. She was then added to a Telegram group having 180 members.
She was told that she will earn profit for completing tasks assigned to her. However, the woman filed a police complaint saying that she was cheated of Rs 8.20 lakh via those tasks.
As cases of fake work-from-home opportunities are significantly increasing, people are losing their lifetime savings. Scammers are creating messages and websites to trick people. To protect yourself against such frauds, always verify such opportunities, and do fall into such too-good-to-be-true traps.