In an agonising turn of events, a Pune-based retired army veteran has reportedly lost all his life’s savings in a shocking yet foolish online scam, leaving him and his family in despair and knocking on police doors for help as a last resort.
Investigators dubbed it a “money for likes” scam, a new kind of fraud that lures the victim with a handsome monetary reward for each like for a YouTube video.
The Indian Express reported last week that the 65-year-old veteran lost a staggering Rs 1.1 crore in a series of transactions involving several bank accounts within two weeks. Police told the paper that the fraudsters managed to win the victim’s trust by promptly rewarding him for the likes. They then persuaded him to register in a VIP group for higher returns on investments, which he eventually did, and he found himself firmly entangled in their evil designs.
The incident highlights the scammers’ constant search for new ways to exploit the victims. While this may have come across as a new type of attack, online scams for jobs are relatively common. The increasing number of such frauds indicates that online job seekers are high on the list of criminals’ targets. The job and salary cuts by many companies in India and abroad in recent times as cost-cutting measures may have further deepened the job market crisis. In tow, fake job offers also began to appear online, at times with devastating costs for the victims.
Here are some tips to identify and foil such traps.
Language Accuracy: Many a time, these scammers undermine language accuracy. Genuine and legitimate employers put in the effort and check the minute, critical details before postings jobs online or offline. So, wrong spelling or grammatical mistakes could be a reason to doubt the authenticity of the employer. It should raise a red flag that the job posting could be fake.
Work-From-Home Job Scams: During the pandemic, work-from-home became the norm, so much so that people still prefer maintaining the status quo despite the situation being normalized. But the attraction of work-from-home jobs can prove costly for many who do not thoroughly check the job-related information. Scammers take benefit of this psychology and lure job seekers with the ads. They offer work from home a few hours a day with a flexible schedule and the possibility of earning huge sums of money.
Sometimes, they create their job websites and post fake job vacancies there. They also ask for a fee to apply and conduct interviews to make it more authentic, which is how they collect your personal information. When the offer is too good to be true, you must be alert and check the details thoroughly.
Never Pay An Upfront Fee: It must be a thumb rule to refrain from paying upfront money for anything they offer, including the training. Without researching the company and checking the details, one must not pay for any services they promise to provide. The other important information is the address and contact details of the company. If these are missing, there is a strong chance it is a scam.
Unsolicited Emails And Messages: Nowadays, one gets several calls a day. Likewise, there are several emails for jobs but not from those you have applied to. You may also receive WhatsApp messages with links and phone numbers to call back to get a job with guaranteed income and flexible work hours. One needs to be wary of these messages as they are to trick the job seeker and find out their personal information.
What Should You Do If You Get Tricked?
Recent graduates, stay-at-home mothers, and retired people might be easy prey for scammers because of their limited exposure to technology. If you are tricked, you must immediately inform the authorities, such as the police or the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell. Also, with technology always evolving, one should keep abreast of the minimum measures to safeguard against scams online or offline.
Similarly, always search for genuine employers in the job market and be careful when providing information online. You can considerably protect yourself from job scams and other online frauds by staying vigilant.
