The Cyber Crime wing of Tambaram City Police has received over 200 complaints about cyber frauds, including online part-time job scam so far this year. While the gullible victims lost over ₹20 crore, ₹5 crore was frozen by the consistent efforts of the Cyber Crime Police.
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While explaining the modus operandi of fraudsters, the police said in ‘online part-time job scam,’ the victims are lured by WhatsApp and Telegram messages where they are offered online part-time jobs such as liking, subscribing to YouTube videos, writing google reviews, hotel and travel reviews, crypto trading / investment in fake websites created by the fraudsters.
Initially, the victims receive money ranging from ₹150 to ₹1000 for completing tasks. This motivates them to get involved. Then, they are slowly moved to a bigger telegram group with more than 50 participants. There, the victims are asked to pay a subscription for getting tasks which will pay them more.
Many fake screenshots of people earning more money are posted in the group. This increases the confidence in the victims and makes them invest more and more money. The fraudsters then begin to give time-bound tasks and make the victims fail in them. Using this, the fraudsters demand penalty payment by freezing the amount earned. Believing the same, the victims tend to invest more money by borrowing loans from banks, friends and pledging jewels, the police said.
A senior police officer said that mostly educated people and people who are working with IT firms fall prey to these cyber frauds.