A Kolkatan who was offered the opportunity to earn money sitting at home by writing reviews for hotels and cafés without even visiting them was allegedly cheated out of more than Rs 7 lakh, police said.
Officers said they have come across several such cases where people got cheated after falling for the lure of earning handsomely “working from home”.
In these cases, there are no fraudulent phone calls asking to download an app or click on a link. Rather the victims are trapped to transfer their own money with false promises of high returns, the police said.
The complainant who was asked to write reviews had first received a WhatsApp message asking whether she was interested in earning money working from home by posting reviews in favour of a chain of hotels and cafés she might or might not have visited at all.
The sender of the message had introduced herself as a member of the human resource team of an agency in Karnataka. “For every review, an amount was promised. For claiming the money she was asked to contact the receptionist of the respective hotels. A Telegram ID was shared with the complainant through which she could contact the receptionist,” said an officer of Kolkata police cyber cell.
Initially, the complainant received payments for her reviews. Then a purported receptionist introduced the complainant to a person named William through another Telegram ID.
The complainant was added to a Telegram group along with two other persons who were also apparently engaged in the same work, the officer said.
“William introduced himself as the new assignment teacher who would assign new projects to the members of the Telegram group. The complainant kept writing reviews to earn money. However, at one point she realised the money was no longer being credited into her account. She was told that she would have to make a few payments to claim the money and for that she would get an additional profit,” said the officer.
The complainant told the police that she had made online transactions of more than Rs 7 lakh in multiple instalments hoping to get almost double the amount, as was promised to her. When she tried to claim the money, she was told that as the amount had surpassed Rs 5 lakh, she would have to pay another Rs 5 lakh to claim the “credit balance” of her account.
The complainant then realised that she had been duped and reported the matter to the police.
An officer said the entire racket followed the tactic of convincing their targets to pay money in the hope that they would get double in return.
“In this case, there is no downloading of apps or sharing of OTPs. The victims are first lured into a trap by telling them that they could earn money sitting at home. After gaining their confidence, the racketeers then convince the victims to make some payments with the promise that they would get double in return,” the officer said.
Once a victim realises that he or she has been cheated, the fraudsters delete the Telegram group through which all information was shared.
