Hiring the services of a domestic help through an online agency might be easy but not necessarily safe.
If recent cases are any indication, customers could get conned despite a detailed documentation process.
Kengeri resident Sujata Chakrabarti (32) responded recently to a mobile text message.
“As per the message, I logged on to an essential services portal and filled in details to get a fulltime maid with cooking skills. I received an email from an agency in Yeswanthpur offering to send a maid to our house,” said Sujata, a business executive with a top e-commerce firm.
According to the victim, two weeks ago, a man claiming to be from the agency arrived with a woman who stated she was from Maharashtra and would begin work at her home.
“There was detailed paperwork and as per demand, we paid Rs. 7,000 for which the man provided a receipt. But that’s the last we heard from them,” she said.
The phone and details furnished proved to be fake.
On Saturday, Sujata approached the Kengeri police station with a complaint. But the personnel did not register an FIR stating the case was “trivial”.
The woman is not the only victim of an escalating maid-placement fraud with social media abuzz with people on who have lost money.
“In most cases, people affected are city residents who are mostly from outside Karnataka, employed and are desperate to find a maid. When you take the matter to police our claims are rubbished as we are unable to speak the local language,” added a software engineer from Indira Nagar, who refused to identify herself.
The victim had responded to an online advertisement.
Police stations across the city have been receiving complaints.
A Bengaluru city police official said, “There have been cases of maids recruited through agencies fleeing with valuables or not turning up after obtaining a sum as salary advance. This seems like a well-planned fraud with detailed paperwork to bring in the trust among the victims.”
Speaking on the fraud, a representative of portal babajobs.com, which offers domestic help services, said in such cases the fraudulent agencies have picked online requests by customers and committed the fraud by contacting them.
“These maid agencies are not registered with the website and seem to have operated from outside. We have time and again advised our clients not to post phone numbers or contact details and at any case not to make payments without contacting us,” the official said.
There have been cases of maids recruited through agencies fleeing with valuables or not turning up after obtaining a sum as salary advance
Police official
