A 40-year-old communications & behaviour trainer has lodged a complaint with Bandra police claiming that she was duped by a cyber-fraudster to the tune of Rs 2.50 lakh giving her a lucrative earning opportunity wherein she was asked to like Youtube videos and was promised money for the same. The victim was told to spend money for bigger returns and she ended up paying lakhs of rupees and later learnt she has been duped.
According to the police, on January 07, when the victim was at home, she received a message from an unknown WhatsApp number. The fraudster claimed to be a human resources executive of a company looking for recruiting people. "It is regarding the job opportunity, the job is very simple, all you need to do is to Like the YouTube videos and send me screenshots, we will pay 50 rupees for each Like and you can earn up to 5000 rupees a day by liking videos. Would you like to give it a try?" the message stated.
The fraudster also told the victim that she would have to pre-pay for the task and if she paid Rs 7000, she would be entitled to earn Rs 9100. The victim ended up paying Rs 2.50 lakh in four online transactions. However, when she did not get any returns, she realised she had been duped and lodged a complaint on the cyber crime portal after which the police registered an offence based on her complaint on Saturday.
The police has registered a case under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C (identity theft) and 66D (cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act. The police are trying to get more details about the beneficiary bank account holders which were used by the fraudster to receive money.
