An ophthalmologist from Pune, was scammed Rs.23.83Lakh, by cybercriminals between March 28 and April 22. The ophthalmologist was given the task of liking YouTube videos where she was promised valuable returns.
According to a Times of India report, the woman received a message which detailed a work-from-home opportunity and in order to attain more details regarding the job, the victim contacted the person and later applied for employment.
Once the tasks started, the scammers informed the victim to click the like button on the videos that were shared on YouTube. The police have reported that initially the victim was paid 10,275 for finishing the task.
After winning the trust of the victim, the scammers offered her some prepaid tasks and promised more rewards for her if she is ready to invest in the cryptocurrency scheme.
Upon belief, the woman transferred Rs.23.83 Lakhs to the two bank accounts.
When the victim made an attempt to withdraw her cryptocurrency investment, the scammers informed her to pay additional Rs. 30 lakhs to release her payment. However, when she refused to send the payment, her connection with the scammers was interrupted and later, she understood that she had fallen for an online scam.
A similar incident was reported in Pune, where a young engineer lost around Rs.9 Lakhs between April 14 and 20.
According to the report by Times of India, the complainant had received a message on April 12, offering a part-time job offering Rs.5000 a day for liking videos and earning Rs 50 per like.
He was instructed to invest in prepaid tasks where he could earn 30 percent of profit. Upon following their instructions, the engineer earned Rs. 500 within a few hours.
Police further revealed: "Believing them, the engineer transferred Rs12,000 to a UPI ID provided to him. He earned Rs16,000. The complainant then sent Rs5 lakh through three transactions on April 14."
However, online scammers closed the group and informed him to send more money if he needs his money back. According to the police report the victim joined a new group on April 19 and transferred Rs3.96 lakh through seven transactions on April 20. In total, he lost Rs 8.96 lakh to the scammers.
In both cases, there were a number of similarities, where the victims were connected through social media platforms and the messages were received through WhatsApp, Instagram or Telegram and were sent YouTube links to like in exchange for money. Once the victims have received the money the victims began to trust the scammers and invested more money in other tasks.
