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Techie loses parents’ hard-earned middle-class savings to trading after colleague shows him Zerodha, ends up ₹38 lakh in debt
A 35-year-old techie lost his family's savings to stock trading addiction, spiraling into debt.
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A social media user has shared a cautionary tale about the dangers of uninformed stock trading, citing the example of a friend who lost ₹38 lakh to his trading addiction. Hemdharpan took to the social media platform X to talk about his friend who developed a trading addiction after a colleague introduced him to Zerodha.
The friend—a 35-year-old techie—kept putting money into the stock market despite suffering massive losses. In the course of a few months, he wiped out his parents’ hard-earned savings, took out personal loans under false pretext, and eventually had loan recovery agents knocking on his door.
From stability to addiction
Hemdharpan described his friend as a 35-year-old with a stable career in IT and a salary of ₹2 lakh per month, along with ₹14 lakh in savings. He was married and had a child too.
However, his world began collapsing around two years ago, when a colleague introduced him to stock trading platform Zerodha.
“Today, he is down ₹38 lakhs, his salary is garnished by debt recovery, and his wife is staying at her parents' house,” Hemdharpan said about his friend.
The X user said that his friend began dabbling in the stock market casually, inspired by his colleague who made ₹12,000 through intraday trading.
“A colleague showed him his Zerodha dashboard during lunch: ₹12,000 profit in 45 mins trading Nifty options,” Hemdharpan said on X.
“Looked effortless. The colleague told him: it wasn’t required to hold stocks long-term. Just capture 10-15 points on intraday swings & he’s done.”
The techie soon realised how addictive trading could be when he made ₹18,000 in two hours. “The dopamine rush was unreal. Suddenly, his daily 9-to-5 job felt like a slow waste of time,” he wrote.
Losing money in stock market
By the second month, the “market showed its true face.” The techie lost ₹50,000 in minutes “because he refused to hit his stop-loss.”
(Also read: Indian-origin techie loses over ₹2 crore to stock trading: ‘I went to gambling addiction program’)
Instead of accepting the loss, he broke the golden rule of trading. He transferred ₹1 lakh from his family’s savings to recover the money.
“This is when revenge trading took over. When you trade to recover lost money, you don't look at charts—you look at numbers ticking on a screen like a slot machine.
“He started taking 30-40 trades a day. Even when he won, brokerage & transaction charges ate up his profits,” Hemdharpan said.
Savings wiped out
The techie started trading in 2024. By mid-2025, the ₹14 lakh he had in savings had been completely wiped out. His addiction, however, did not stop. Instead, he began to hide from his family to trade.
“But the addiction didn't stop—it escalated. He began hiding screen time from his family, locking himself in the bathroom during work hours to check Option Greeks, open positions, & margin calls,” read the X post.
In the face of mounting losses, he took personal loans from three different banks, lying that he needed the money for home renovation.
When that money ran out, the techie turned to instant loan apps. “He kept convincing himself that he needs one big trend on Expiry Day to reset everything to zero,” his friend wrote on X.
(Also read: Student with zero income loses ₹46 lakh through F&O trading: ‘addicted, can’t quit’)
Lost parents’ hard-earned money
The breaking point came in late 2025 when loan recovery agents began knocking on his door. Overnight, his family realised how big of a hole he had dug himself into.
The techie, it turned out, had a loan of ₹24 lakhs. This, along with the ₹14 lakh savings he had lost, put his total losses to ₹38 lakh.
“All illusions crumbled overnight. He had to confess everything: the wiped-out savings, 24 lakhs debt, and the fact that his child's school fees had bounced…. His parents were heartbroken—their hard-earned middle-class savings nullified."
His parents were heartbroken to discover that their hard-earned middle-class savings had been lost. His wife took their child and went back to her parents’ place.
The techie has now started on the long path to recovery. According to Hemdharpan, he has sold his car and put a loan restructuring plan in place.
“Markets are brutal,” the X user warned as he concluded his thread. “The market doesn't care about your need to pay off debts or your emotional attachment to a trade. Only solution is to STOP NOW. Close the account, uninstall the apps, and seek help.”
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
