Navi Mumbai: Panvel resident loses ₹14 lakh in online work fraud

Navi Mumbai: A 36-year-old Panvel resident lost Rs 14.38 lakhs to cyber fraudsters while trying to work online part-time to earn extra. Every time cyber fraudsters used to ask him to pay an initial amount to withdraw the earned money through online work.

Over the period, the earned amount became bigger and the complainant failed to withdraw as they had a term of first depositing a bigger amount to withdraw the earned money.  

Fraud through alamo-rating.com

According to police, the complainant received a message on his telegram account regarding online work with a daily income upto Rs 4000. The complainant showed interest in the scheme by replying to a text message. Later a person called him and described the scheme. As per the scheme, the complainant had to manage ratings for films and for that he would get money. An account was opened at https://www.alamo-rating.com and an initial fund of Rs 10,000 was deposited by them. The complainant secured 30 ratings and his account was showing a balance of Rs 11,506. They asked the complainant to withdraw Rs 890 as the initial income of the day.

Amount kept getting bigger with completion of every round of ratings

Now, they asked the complainant to deposit Rs 10,000 to continue the work. Similarly, after securing 30 ratings, he saw the balance was negative Rs 15867. When he contacted the person, they asked to deposit the money and he would be able to withdraw it all. He deposited and then a balance of Rs 32,600 was seen. He withdrew all the money and made a profit of Rs 6700 as he had already deposited Rs 25,900.

In the same way, the amount became bigger with every completion of every round of ratings and at one stage, he was asked to deposit Rs 24 lakh to get back all the earnings and deposits. As per the complaint, he lost a total of Rs 14,38,075.

After realising that he was cheated, he approached the Panvel Taluka and registered a case against the two Telegram account holders. The police registered a case under section 66 D of the IT Act and started an investigation. 

How to avoid cybercrime

According to police, scammers send fake messages/E-mails offering part-time jobs claiming to be from reputed companies and once the victim gets convinced, the scammer asks for money in lieu of registration fees or withdrawing funds etc. In addition, police also asked citizen to be cautious before doing any financial transactions with unknown persons; It is best to report and block suspicious numbers/URL's.

A few of the do’ and don’ts are: Make your passwords complex and never share them, activate 2-Step Factor Authentication on social media, check your privacy settings on social networking sites, do not click on random Links or download unknown files, always keep profile locked and private, do not accept request from strangers, do not share/download obscene video, images among other.