'Work from home’ scams on the rise. Here’s how to stay safe

India seems to be plagued by ‘work from home’ job scams. The Centre on Wednesday banned over 100 websites for perpetrating such frauds. The government said these schemes were being run from overseas and targeting unemployed youth, women and retirees. Let’s take a closer look at the rise of such scams in India: What happened? Last week, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), a wing of the Union Home Ministry, through its vertical National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (NCTAU) identified and recommended blocking 100 websites. The I4C is an initiative of the Home Ministry to deal with cybercrime in the country in a coordinated and comprehensive manner. The websites were then blocked by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) via the Information Technology Act, 2000. As per the home ministry, these websites facilitated task-based organised illegal investment related to economic crimes. Operated by overseas actors, they use digital advertisement, chat messengers and mule and rented accounts.

The numbers are staggering.

The Rest of The World website quoted Delhi Police as saying that January alone saw more than 30,000 people scammed for Rs 200 crore by persons claiming to represent e-commerce websites. A similar scheme in Odisha witnessed at least 50,000 people in five states being scammed over the promise of government jobs. The Times of India quoted data from the Delhi Police showing an 84 per cent increase year over year in complaints about such scams. Victims are targeted through digital advertisements on social media platforms such as Google and Meta. The advertisements use key words such as “Ghar baithe job” (work from home) and “Ghar baithe kamai kaise karen” (how to make money by working from home) in multiple languages from overseas advertisers. Upon clicking the advertisement, an agent then reaches out to the potential victim via WhatsApp or Telegram. The agent then convinces the victim to perform routine tasks – for example, like or subscribing videos and leaving star ratings. [caption id=“attachment_13472752” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Victims are targeted through digital advertisements on social media platforms such as Google and Meta.[/caption] After the task is completed, a victim is usually given a small commission.

Then, the trap is sprung.

The victim is then asked to invest some of his or her own money to receive larger returns. Meanwhile, the victim is assigned a number of tasks to complete. The victim then simultaneously finds himself or herself assigned more and more tasks even as they deposit larger and larger sums. Finally, the deposits are frozen. The proceeds from the large-scale economic fraud are then laundered out of India using card network, crypto currency, overseas ATM withdrawals and international Fintech companies. As per the Rest of The World, this was what Anuj in New Delhi experienced. Anuj in April was approached on WhatsApp by someone purporting to be “Shyla Sarika from Nielsen Media India Pvt. Ltd.” Sarika offered Anuj a part-time job – of following celebrity Instagram accounts and uploading screenshots on a Telegram group. Sarika then deposited $15 in three days into Anuj’s bank account. When Anuj was told he had a chance to generate high returns by investing his own money, he agreed. But then Anuj found himself unable to withdraw any of the money he’d “earned” – until he finished his tasks. Anuj end up sending the scammers $2,670. When he asked for his money back, he was given another task worth $3,644. Anuj finally filed a complaint on the cybercrime portal. “Nothing has happened so far,” Anuj told the website. Anuj is far from alone. As per The Times of India, a software engineer in Telangana lost nearly Rs 50 lakh to such a scam. The woman from Serilingampally was given the task of writing Google reviews for a restaurant. The techie said she received a message on WhatsApp on 2 August from someone identifying themselves as ‘Anaya’. The woman was given nearly two dozen tasks to complete and asked to join a Telegram group. “After completion of three tasks, I had to share screenshots and provide bank details for payment,” she told the newspaper. She was paid Rs 13,000. “My account balance was shown as 26 lakh and I was asked to pay 10.6 lakh as tax to withdraw it. I paid, but I was told I had made a mistake in a task due to which credit score reduced from 100 to 60, and to make a withdrawal the score should be 100. I was asked to pay 16 lakh more,” she said. A homemaker in Pune similarly lost Rs 4.58 lakh in an online scam, as per the newspaper. The woman, who was told to like videos and write reviews, invested all of her savings in the scam. As per Indian Express, a man in Faridabad in November was duped out of Rs 14 lakh by scammers. The victim, Shiv Kumar, said he was told he would earn money simply for visiting the Amazon website. Kumar received Rs 50 per visit – after which his account received Rs 300. Then, he was added to a Telegram group with 300 members. “The first prepaid task was for Rs 1,000, and upon completion, I received Rs 1,300. The earnings increased with each subsequent task,” he added. “After completing a task for Rs 5,000 on November 15, in a group, I earned Rs 3,300 in my account. In the second prepaid task on the same day, the woman who added me to the group asked me to start dealing with an ID named Preetish, who, according to them, was a teacher,” Kumar said. Preetish gave him four tasks. [caption id=“attachment_13472762” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]
The agent convinces the victim to perform routine tasks – for example, like or subscribing videos and leaving star ratings. After the task is completed, a victim is usually given a small commission. Then, the trap is sprung.[/caption] “According to Preetish, the fourth task was for Rs 1,88,000, but I refused, fearing a complete loss of my money. However, under pressure, I arranged funds through loans to fulfill the task. Unfortunately, I couldn’t complete it within the game’s framework. Consequently, I was given a fifth task for Rs 1,88,000, which I declined. In the evening, I requested my money back, and I was asked to complete a task worth Rs 1,51,000. After negotiating for a day to arrange money, the task was agreed upon, and I borrowed money to complete it,” Kumar told the newspaper. “Upon completion, I was given a withdrawal code to be given to the person who added me on Telegram. However, after providing the code, my credit score dropped, and I was informed that I needed to pay Rs 1 lakh to fix it,” he further said. Kumar was then bilked out of more and more money until he finally ran out and approached the police.

The fraudsters also seem to be altering their modus operandi.

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“The scammers give the people simple tasks, such as liking videos on social media, subscribing to online channels, and reviewing movies. After the tasks are completed, the scammers promise them a commission but instead dupe them on various pretexts,” an officer told the newspaper. A Delhi resident lost Rs 9 lakh while applying for a work-from-home job. “The complainant was surfing on social media when he came across a post about ‘earning huge money daily working from home’. He clicked on the post and was taken to a Whatsapp number. The number then asked him to register on a website through a link given to him,” Delhi Police said. The website then, as a part of a work-for-home job, asked him to complete the tasks given to him. The website told the complainant to deposit a sum and withdraw it, for which he will be given a commission along with the original amount,” police said. The police further said that as the complainant withdrew the money, he was provided with a commission initially, but later when he deposited hefty sums of Rs 9,32,000, he was not able to withdraw the money. But why is this happening? “The job situation is very bad for the youth. They are not getting jobs appropriate to their skill,” Arun Kumar, a retired professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Rest of World. “Inflation — compounded by lack of jobs, loss of purchasing power of the money — is responsible for such criminal activities and victims falling to such scams,” Kumar, the author of Demonetization and the Black Economy added. How can you stay safe? As per Telangana Today, there are a few simple ways to stay safe including:

• Checking out the company or person offering you a job
• Not providing personal information until you are sure the position is for real
• Being sceptical of opportunities that promise much for just a little effort
• Never paying any ‘joining fees’ for part-time work

As per NDTV, the Centre has warned citizens to carry out their due diligence before investing in any online schemes. Citizens have also been told not to do any financial transactions without verifying the identity of person on the other end – particularly he or she reached out over social media. Citizens must also check the receiver’s name in the UPI app. If the name doesn’t match, it is likely to be a mule. One must also check from where the initial payment was received, as per NDTV. Citizens have been advised to promptly report phone numbers and social media handles used by such fraudsters to the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). It said several complaints have been received through 1930 helpline and the NCRP and these offences were posing significant threat to the citizens and also involved data security concerns. As precautionary measure, it is advised to exercise due diligence before investing in any such very high commission paying online schemes sponsored over internet. If an unknown person contacts anyone over WhatsApp or Telegram, refrain from performing financial transactions without verification, the statement said Verify the name of receiver mentioned in UPI App. If receiver is any random person, it may be a mule account and scheme may be fraudulent.Similarly, check the source from where initial commission is received, it said. Citizens should refrain from doing transactions with unknown accounts, as these could be involved in money laundering and even terror financing and lead to blocking of accounts by police and other legal action, the statement said. With inputs from agencies