Mumbai: A 37-year-old woman, a banker, has lost Rs 54 lakh to scammers in online task fraud. According to the police, the victim is a resident of Airoli and works in a bank at Malad. Last month the victim was surfing on the internet about a part time earning opportunity.
On May 07, the victim received a WhatsApp message from a woman, who claimed to be an HR of an investment company and offered a freelance work from home opportunity to the victim by giving online ratings and reviews of restaurants offering Rs 100 to Rs 1000.
The victim performed a demo task for which she received Rs 200 in her bank account. The scammer then shared a Telegram link with the victim and asked her to join a Telegram channel for further tasks. The scammer then asked the victim to perform a prepaid task of Rs 1000 for which she got a profit of Rs 500. Then on May 08, the victim had invested Rs 54.30 lakh in 11 transactions to perform prepaid tasks.
The victim had used his savings, took loan and money from his relatives for performing prepaid tasks. Later, when the victim demanded to withdraw his earnings, he was being asked to invest more money. Having realised that he had been duped, the victim approached the police and got an offence registered in the matter on Saturday. The victim has provided details of the contact numbers, links, Telegram accounts and beneficiary bank account details to the police in his complaint.
The police have registered a case under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act.
