Noida: Man falls for lure of ‘easy’ work from home job, loses ₹20 lakh to fraud

A 28-year-old man was allegedly duped of ₹20 lakh by a fraudster contacted him through WhatsApp and offered him a work-from-home (WFH) job to earn easy money, senior police officers said on Tuesday, adding that on the complaint of the victim, a case of fraud was registered at the Cyber Crime branch on Monday.

“Complainant, Sandeep Kumar, a resident of Pocket 6, Sector Chi 1 in Greater Noida, works at a private company. On January 1, he received a message from an unidentified number on WhatsApp and was offered a WFH job to earn easy money,” said Umesh Chandra Naithani, station house officer, cyber crime, adding that the victim was tasked with rating hotels on Google Maps.

Later, he was added to a social media group, the man said in his complaint. “They (fraudsters) added me to the social media group with 100 members, who were also given the same task. I started rating hotels, and there were some investment tasks too, and I invested ₹50,000 at first,” Kumar said in his complaint.

Kumar was told to “invest more” to “earn more”, and in that manner, he was made to invest more than ₹20 lakh, Naithani said, adding that when he tried to withdraw the money, the fraudster asked him to pay ₹5 lakh as tax.

“When Kumar realised that he was defrauded, he quit the WhatsApp group, after which he started receiving death threats over phone calls and messages. He was also told that his bank account would be freezed, said Naithani, adding that on the complaint of the victim, a case under sections 506 (criminal intimidation) and 420 (cheating and dishonesty) of the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act was registered against unidentified suspects at the cybercrime police station on Monday, and further investigation is on.