Woman loses ₹10.15 lakh to work-from-home scam

On January 31, the complainant saw an advertisement on Facebook about ‘work-from-home’ jobs and after she expressed her interest in that, a person called her.

Mumbai: A 49-year-old woman lost ₹10.15 lakh to online frauds while looking for a work-from-home job opportunity. The woman was asked to complete tasks on a Telegram group and invest money in Bitcoin to earn a high income.

At one point, she saw that ₹20 lakh was deposited in her virtual account and requested the accused to allow her to transfer the money to her bank account. But she was told that to do that she needs to complete one more task and deposit an amount of ₹8 lakh, an officer said. (Image for representation)

On January 31, the complainant saw an advertisement on Facebook about ‘work-from-home’ jobs and after she expressed her interest in that, she got a call.

“The caller informed her that she needs to like YouTube videos and send screenshots and earn money,” states the complaint. “The accused also sent her some YouTube video links on Telegram. She liked the video and first received ₹150. She then started liking all the videos the accused used to send her on Telegram, but the money was not being credited to her bank account as earlier.”

On inquiring, she was informed that she would have to complete some tasks and invest some money in Bitcoins to earn money. After this, the woman started completing every task sent to her and invested money in their instructions. She was also “earning” money and could see that the money was being deposited in her “virtual account,” a police officer said.

At one point, she saw that ₹20 lakh was deposited in her virtual account and requested the accused to allow her to transfer the money to her bank account. But she was told that to do that she needs to complete one more task and deposit an amount of ₹8 lakh, an officer said.

This is when she realised that she was being duped. But by then she had already lost ₹10.15 lakh to the frauds and on Wednesday she filed a police complaint. Based on her complaint, the Gamdevi police have registered an FIR and are in process of writing to service providers and banks to obtain details of fraud and fraudulent transactions.