Trying to earn extra money, a 26-year-old accountant lost Rs2.91 lakh to a cyber fraudster who trapped him in a part-time job fraud. In his complaint to the Vakola police, Rohit Gurav said that on February 25, he came across a part-time job advertisement on his Instagram account, which promised earnings between Rs3,000 and Rs90,000.
Clicking on the advertisement link flashed a WhatsApp number which was contacted by Gurav. The con took personal information of the aggrieved and then sent a Telegram link to him. Subsequently, he was asked to login onto the messaging app and pay Rs150 as fee for getting a task. The accountant complied and was assigned a task to sell a product, which he completed and even got a commission for it. This continued for a few days and later Gurav kept paying money but neither got a task nor commission.
In this manner, he ended up paying a total of Rs2.91 lakh, after which he tried to contact the Whatsapp number through which he had got his first gig but the contact was unreachable. At this moment, Gurav finally realised that he had been cheated and lodged a police complaint. A first information report has been registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.
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