Author- Sukhpreet Sodhi
Although the term “work from home” is decades old in Western countries, In India it gained its momentum during the covid-19 era.
Due to the complete lockdown in the country, the employees had to switch from the traditional method of working to a new modernized, and more comfortable method i.e. “work from home”.
The development in the digital and technological sector also leads to an increase in cyberattacks and cybercrimes. It brought a lot of changes in the execution of criminal activities. With globalization and ongoing changes in the corporate sector, even cybercriminals have updated themselves according to the current changes. Cyber Scammers are leaving no stone unturned to lure people and make their ends meet.
“WORK FROM HOME”
Work from home is the concept where people instead of going to their offices work from their apartments. Being a more convenient and comfortable method, it generally attracts a lot of employees. Even after post, covid several companies offer “work from home” to their employees or freelancers. It is also a good option for people who want to earn extra money, freelancers, and housewives as they can earn money without leaving the comfort zone of their houses.
Nowadays you can see many advertisements where companies or several websites offer you such WFH jobs with a handsome sum of money in return for a few hours of work and with minimal to no qualification skills. But don’t you think these people are too good to be true? In the current time where it is almost impossible for a graduate to find a job with a decent income, how can a school or college dropout get such a generous package? These generous people are professional cyber scammers whose only motive is to trap people and demand ransom in return. Data entry jobs are among the simplest job opportunities but these are also the favorites for scammers who trap victims and vanish after dumping them of money.
MODUS OPERANDI OF THESE CRIMINALS
“Hey! You are selected for the Work from Home job offers in our company. Your salary will be Rs 30,000 per month. [Click the link below to enquire]”
“Hi!! I am from the HR department of Amazon- we are offering you the to earn Rs 3000-4000 per day by doing your job from home. Kindly call this number for further queries”
Messages like these are the main tool which is used by cybercriminals to attract victims. Various types of messages related to “work from home” are circulated by them in order to trap more and more people. Once the victim shows his interest and proceeds further, these so-called HR AGENTS start their manipulative conversations and offer lucrative job offers to these victims. Once they earn the confidence, these fraudsters send a link and ask the victim to click on the link and pay a nominal registration fee of Rs. 100. On clicking a web page opens in which the victim enters his/her payment credentials such as card number, expiry date, CVV, OTP, etc. The fraudster then initiates online transactions and gets OTP which is entered by the victim itself, the amount gets debited from the victim’s account and in this way, the innocent people lose their hard-earned money.
Cybercrime is emerging as a big threat to the corporate world. These scammers have a well-organized structure to scam people. These days they are using “LEGAL METHODS” to rob people.
Firstly they will offer you some work like email processing, data entry, video surfing, etc. You will be asked to complete all the work in a particular time duration and with a certain accuracy rate. You will be asked to sign a contract where it will be mentioned that if you fail to follow the terms and conditions, you will be asked to pay a penalty amount.
Sounds simple right? Once you submit your work to their websites it will show a much higher rate of inaccuracy. These fraud companies have designed their websites in such a manner that no matter what you will submit it will always show a very high inaccuracy rate. Now according to their terms and conditions, you will be asked to pay a hefty penalty amount. When denied they will threaten you with fake legal notices, fake lawyers, and of course the fake contract that you signed. After a lot of bargaining, they will ask you to settle the matter by paying a certain amount and nullifying the contract. Once you pay them the bargained amount, they will again ask for more and more money.
Let’s understand the modus operandi of these criminals by some real-life cases-
1] Harin Bansal, a man in Delhi lost Rs 9 lakh when he applied for a work-from-home job. He applied for the job through a social media advertisement and was directed to a WhatsApp chat with someone who asked him to register on the company’s website through the given link to proceed with the registration process. He was asked to complete certain tasks. His job was to deposit a certain amount and withdraw it. He was promised a commission along with the original amount for doing so. The scammers earned Harin’s trust by fulfilling their promises in the beginning but once he deposited ₹9,32,000, he fell into the trap and was unable to withdraw his money.
2] Mumbai Police have arrested Sripathi Guruprasanna Raj, the Chairman and Managing Director of Sohonet India Private Ltd. His company is accused of cheating people by offering them a monthly income of Rs. 15,000. This company has lured victims by giving advertisements in newspapers and by holding seminars in five-star hotels in various metropolitan cities with attractive schemes named Instant Treasure Pack (ITP) and Green Channel. The interested people were asked to register with their company registration fees of Rs. 4,000 which was later increased to Rs. 6,000 and were given the work of data conversion. Only some people were provided with the actual job. These people submitted their work within the deadline but they were not paid anything by the company. Out of the 18,000 workers only 1200 were paid their promised salaries. In this way, Sohonet amassed a huge amount which may run into a couple of crores.
These are only some of the real-life cases that depict the reality of the WORK FROM HOME sites. According to the “HINDUSTAN TIMES” around 1000 women were trapped by cyber criminals in ‘work-from-home frauds. With the continuous increase of such types of cyber frauds, Mumbai police issued a cyber safety advisory list of dos and don’ts.
HOW TO PREVENT FROM SUCH TYPES OF CYBER SCAMS?
1] National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal https://cybercrime.gov.in
In case of getting any fraud emails/messages directly report to this portal.
2]Do not click on any suspicious or unknown links.
3]Always use strong passwords.
4]Do not share your OTPs, CVVs, or Credit card/debit card number with anyone.
5] Avoid doing transactions in a public place.
6]Do not install any app from an unknown link.
7]Do not give your credentials to any unknown websites.
8]In case of applying for jobs, do check the authenticity of the company to which you are applying.
WHAT STEPS CAN BE TAKEN IN CASE OF FALLING INTO THESE SCAMMERS’ TRAPS?
1] In case of cyber fraud, call immediately in 1930. This number is the centralized number of the cybercrime portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs and is applicable across the country. Also, file a complaint on the cybercrime portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs at cybercrime.gov.in.
2]Immediately inform your bank about the entire incident. Block the account. Many times, cyber thugs try to withdraw money from Victim’s account again after withdrawing money once. If your mobile has been hacked immediately call the SIM provider to get your SIM blocked.
3]Visit the nearest police station and file a complaint about the fraud that happened to you.
CONCLUSION: –
CYBER CRIMES are indeed a threat to our developing society. These criminals not only snatch people’s money but also take away their dreams. By offering fake jobs these scammers rob people of money and use their data to create fake profiles. The leaked data can even cause threats to national security. Thus, It is very important for us to be very responsible. Before applying to any company we must check its authenticity of it. Try talking to the employees of the company. Read reviews about the same. Instead of trusting such offers blindly, we must do good research about the company. Even after taking all the precautions if somehow one lands in their trap he/she should not shy away from taking the help from police.
