Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Cyber conmen are now increasingly targeting jobless youths along with housewives and students, luring them with the promise of quick money through online “work-from-home” or “task job” schemes.
Police say around two dozen such cases surfaced in Bhopal in last couple of years. Many such cases go unreported as victims lose smaller amounts and prefer to remain silent out of embarrassment.
In one such case, a 25-year-old homemaker from Kolar lost over Rs 11 lakh after getting trapped in a so-called “task job” fraud. The woman who earlier worked in a corporate firm was looking for online income opportunities when she came across a reel on Instagram offering an attractive work-from-home job. Clicking the link directed her to a fake website, and soon she was added to Telegram groups in which people claimed earning huge sums by completing simple online tasks.
The woman invested Rs 1,100 as a trial and within minutes, she earned Rs 200 profit that was transferred to her bank account. Encouraged by the profit, she began completing more tasks, each time earning small profits.
However, after a few successes her tasks began to fail. The fraudsters told her she needed to invest larger sums to unlock or rectify the pending tasks.
Trusting them, she kept transferring Rs 7,000, Rs 50,000, and even higher sums in hope of recovering her blocked funds. Within a week, she transferred Rs 11.03 lakh to the bank accounts of the conmen.
When no money returned and the social media platform groups disappeared, she realised that she has been duped. On her complaint, cyber crime branch registered a case and are tracking the bank accounts used in the transactions.
“We have seen several such cases recently where fraudsters exploited people on offers to earn quick money from home,” said additional DCP (crime branch) Shailendra Singh Chauhan. “They use social media advertisements, fake job portals, and Telegram groups to build trust. They show false transactions and then make victims invest larger sums till they realise they have been trapped,” he added.
Cyber cops said that such scams had become increasingly sophisticated often using genuine looking websites and even AI-generated voices to appear authentic.
Modus operandi
Fraudsters advertise easy work-from-home jobs on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Victims are directed to Telegram or WhatsApp groups with fake earners sharing screenshots of high profits. Small initial tasks generate real returns to build trust. The victims are later told that larger tasks require higher deposits, which the victims lose once they invest. The groups are deleted and scammers vanish once the money is lost.
