"Are you interested in a part-time/full-time job that will not affect your current job where you can operate between 1-2 hours and earn between Rs 1,000-7,000 per day?"
Shobhit Bansal, a 29-year-old software engineer from Agra, received a message on WhatsApp one day that seemed like any other. Hoping to earn some extra income, Bansal accepted the offer, not realising that he was dealing with a scammer who was posing as a recruiter for a reputable company.
At first, everything seemed to be going well, but soon Bansal found himself trusting the scammers, leading to him losing approximately Rs 4 lakh in just a few days.
Unfortunately, Bansal is not the only one who has fallen victim to this type of scam. The Uttar Pradesh Cyber Cell is currently investigating 900 similar crimes, while a Times of India report from January indicated that over 30,000 people were defrauded of more than Rs 200 crores in just four months through job scams.
Multiple job offers, one scam strategy
Work-from-home opportunities, high-paying jobs, flexible working hours, like and earn money, rate Google links, crypto trading — these are some keywords that you might have seen popping up on your messages, WhatsApp, email and social media feed. These are some of the most common incentives that fraudsters use to lure people into investing/online job scams.
Although all these online job scams start with different offers, they follow a similar pattern. According to cybersecurity firm CloudSEK, this basically involves completing simple tasks, getting small amounts of money in return to form trust and establish the fraudsters' authenticity. However, once the target is enticed to pay a significant sum, the scammers abscond with the funds and subsequently block the target's number.
YouTube likes with high daily income
Vijaylakshmi Anand*, a housewife based in Hyderabad, was hoping to support her husband by earning some money of her own. She received an offer that seemed legitimate at the time, which would allow her to earn income without having to leave her household responsibilities. Unfortunately, she soon discovered that this offer would end up costing her family most of their savings, as she lost approximately Rs 2 lakh.
Both Bansal and Anand were asked to message a “receptionist” on Telegram to take the job offer forward by completing a few tasks which included liking YouTube videos and getting Rs 150 for each like.
After paying people their due and making them believe that this is, in fact, a genuine job opportunity, the scammers then ask them to join an exclusive group, which offers prepaid tasks with a more lucrative return.
(Image: CNBC-TV18)“I was asked to pay Rs 1,000 and form a crypto trading account to which all my future payments would be transferred. I got Rs 1,500 back, which got me to trust them. As a part of the daily tasks, I kept on investing more amounts of money and was also seeing profits on the platform,” Bansal said.
These groups also had other people who were regularly investing on the portal that the recruiter shared, making the process look legitimate. When they found out that they had to withdraw the money to reach their bank accounts, they contacted the head of the group, referred to as “teacher”, who in turn asked to deposit another Rs 2,50,000 to make the withdrawal.
The cycle of asking for money did not end there, other requests were also made in the name of taxes, fees, commission etc. which was as high as Rs 5 lakh. By the time people realise that they are being scammed, they have already invested a lot of their hard-earned money and feel like it’s too late for them to get out.
In March, Aaj Tak reported that an ex-army officer lost over Rs 1 crore to one such scheme. Pune Police is currently investigating the matter.
CNBC-TV18 reached out to Telegram through their press chatbot and received this response:
“Since its launch, Telegram has actively moderated harmful content on its platform — including potential fraud. Through user reports and proactive moderation of public chats (such as public groups and channels), Telegram has banned millions of chats and accounts for violating our Terms of Service.
If you have links to any content encouraging fraud, I would greatly appreciate it if you could send them to me so that our moderators may investigate and take appropriate action.”
(Image: CNBC-TV18)Scams through recruitment firms
While the job scam in the name of YouTube likes and comments is new, the scamsters have been scamming people acting as HR executives from big companies for quite some time.
Also Read: Will you be a scam artist's next target?
25-year-old Vipin Upadhyay from Hyderabad was similarly scammed last year when he got a message on WhatsApp from a fraudster disguised as an HR Executive for IT company Accenture.
Upadhyay was told that he has been shortlisted for a role in the company after analysing his CV from a job recruitment portal.
“They had a proper website, I had an interview and I even got a legitimate-looking offer letter. Then I was asked to give Rs 2 lakh as training fee and pre onboarding process which I was told I will get back but the training never happened and when I contacted the company I realised it was a scam,” he added.
(Image: CNBC-TV18)According to a report by PTI, last year a woman from Delhi lost Rs 3 lakh and some of the people, who fell for the job scam, got hired too. They were asked to work on some fake tasks as well to make it look real. Later, the fraudster asked the victims to create a virtual wallet, after which their money was stolen. In another similar incident, The Hindu reported in January 2023, that at least 50,000 job seekers across the country were duped of crores of money by scamsters using phony websites for providing government jobs.
Another way the fraudsters scam people is by creating fake profiles on job recruitment platforms. Recently according to a report by The Financial Times LinkedIn has blocked tens and millions of fake accounts after receiving complaints of rampant job scams.
Exploiting social media
Ajay Tomar, a journalist from Hyderabad, found his Instagram account hacked earlier in April. The imposter then started posting from the account sharing messages that read “Wow I can't believe bitcoin mining is real I invested just Rs 40,000 and got back Rs 440,000 profit within 3 hours of investing.” The imposter then shared forged screenshots to confirm the same.
Also Read: Here’s how a Rs 2 lakh job scam revealed Rs 3,000 crore money laundering via cryptocurrencies
He then moved to texting Tomar’s followers on the platform asking them to advertise their company’s products — which suspiciously included cars, furniture, computers and even food and beverages — and getting paid in return.
(Image: CNBC-TV18)Tomar also added that he received a similar message, which is how he lost access to his Instagram account. Tomar filed a complaint in the cyber cell and is awaiting action for his account to be taken down.
CNBC-TV18 also found out that interacting with such accounts is enough for them to target you and use your account for similar purposes. A user also claimed that their Instagram account got hacked by only following an account called __florenthia_crypto_influencer. The process thereafter was similar — reaching out to the followers and asking them to invest money.
Who is the most susceptible to these fake offers?
According to cybercrime investigator Ritesh Bhatia, the groups target people from who they can extract the most money. “Their aim is to get at least Rs 10 lakhs from each person. You will never hear stories about a watchman or a cab driver losing money to these scams because they don’t have this much money to spare,” he added.
A report by chat-based direct hiring platform Hirect showed that millennials aged between 20-29 are the most exposed to scams and fraudulent job offers. Nobody suspects accepting an offer to just like some YouTube videos or rating links on Google could lead to them losing their earnings.
Another cyber crime expert Yamini Naidu pointed out that a lot of time these scamsters find people through job portals “They’ll see a set of people especially students looking for a certain kind of job and make a whole scam scheme targeting them,” she added. She also mentioned that they do target housewives and software engineers with the strategy of having an extra income with freelancing.
Experts from CloudSEK also suggest that scammers often target vulnerable groups such as students, recent graduates, and those unemployed or underemployed. “These groups may be more susceptible to offers that promise easy money or quick job opportunities. Anyone actively seeking employment or looking for ways to make money online can become a target,” the company added.
Rahul Sasi, CEO and co-founder of the firm, in a post on LinkedIn also shared how one such group offered him Rs 1,500-Rs 3,000 per day for subscribing to YouTube channels.
(Image: LinkedIn)Chinese involvement suspected
Two of our sources alleged that this is the mastermind of some rogue Chinese entities. “This is an economic warfare on India,” one of them said.
In October last year, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided 12 entities involved in a part-time job fraud case in Bengaluru and seized Rs 5.85 crore. "All transactions were under the control of Chinese persons through phone and WhatsApp groups. Of the 92 accused, six are citizens of China and Taiwan, who were controlling the entire scam," the ED said.
In January, Delhi Police arrested three accused in a similar case following raids in the city. It was found that the fake website was created by China-based developers and the IP address of the Telegram ID through which the website’s link was shared was also traced back to China.
Sources also allege that such entities have extracted over Rs 42,000 crores from the country.
This is an organised crime by multiple gangs with the objective to pull out as much money as possible. These people also seem to be extremely confident and have sent messages to victims saying that they can report to the police if they want to, believing well enough that they cannot be caught.
(Image: CNBC-TV18)Can you get your money back?
In an ideal world, the answer would be yes. Prof. Triveni Singh, SP Cyber Crime Uttar Pradesh Police says that as soon as you realise that you have been scammed through one such scheme, a complaint needs to be registered on 1930, which is the national cyber crime helpline. Reporting the crime in under an hour through the helpline increases the chances of you getting your money back.
Post that, you also need to file an online complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (https://cybercrime.gov.in/Default.aspx) and file an FIR at your nearest Cyber Cell police station, who will then connect with the nodal officer of the bank to which the money was transferred and the amount you sent will be frozen in the receiver’s account. Once that happens, there are chances that you can get your money back in seven to 10 days.
Anamika Sharma*, an IT professional from Mumbai, received her Rs 46,000 back after she did her due diligence. Sharma also said that the authorities were not exactly cooperative with her in the process. “I had called the helpline as soon as I realised that I had been scammed. I was at the station from 7 in the morning and there was nobody to file my complaint,” she added.
An officer finally registered her complaint at around 11 am, but she claims that he made hostile comments and yelled at her for using social media. She also added that he did not have the contact information of the nodal officer handy and had to send an email as the first response.
“I believe that I was given priority, or even that my complaint was filed, is because I knew people in the system. That should not be the case. There are several vulnerable people who have lost more than me and have been waiting for months in hopes of getting their money back,” Sharma said.
Bansal reported his case in March and received a confirmation from the police about the same a few days later. He also claims that the money he lost has been frozen in the receiver’s bank account but no further action has been taken. The story is similar for Anand as well.
Whose to blame
Answers to questions like whose fault is it — people who want to make extra money, scamsters in the centre of it, or authorities unable to keep a check on them — is a circle of blame game that nobody is willing to play.
What matters is that we stay vigilant and double-check every communication that we receive, especially from unknown sources.
*Names changed to protect the victim's identity
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