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Fake job offers snaring more and more victims

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A 32-year-old software professional received an email from an unidentified person posing as a senior official of a reputed software firm, offering him a lucrative job and asking for his resume on the given email id. The email also contained phone numbers.

The victim was keen to accept the job offer. He sent his resume and contacted the person on the given phone number. The man who answered the phone claimed to be a senior manager of the company, and asked a couple of questions. He then requested the victim to deposit some money in his account for procedure and this process did not stop till the victim lost Rs1.3 lakh over four weeks.

The cyber crime cell (CCC) received 30 such complaints. 

Modus operandi

A few months ago, the police arrested two suspects in a Nigerian fraud case where the fraudsters had duped a software engineer of Rs10.27 lakh. The victim had got an email promising a high-profile job in a London hotel called New Climax.

The fraudster posed as a UK-based counsellor. He convinced the victim to pack up and leave India for UK.

Senior police inspector Sarjerao Babar of CCC told dna, “The fraudsters send email at random to lakhs of people in the country. First, the fraudsters get details of the victim. They start giving procedures and ask people to deposit money in a given account. After the money is deposited, they immediately transfer it into their own account and pay commission to people for using their bank accounts.”

The fraudsters offer jobs abroad and extract money for stamps, signatures of embassy officials, airport tickets and so on. “The fraudsters buy SIM cards by submitting another person’s documents. They later stop using that number. Thus, there 

would not be any clues to track them,” Babar added.

How cops track cheats

In all cases the fraudsters request the victim to deposit money in a bank account. After the complaint is registered, the police nab the account holder. The fraudsters pay commission to the account holder. Babar said, “The fraudsters pay commission to people for using their bank accounts. In some cases, the account holder submits fake documents to the bank and thus the investigation stumbles.”

Appeal

The cyber crime cell has urged people to not fall prey to fake emails. Unless someone applies for a particular job, how could he or she get email from a reputed firm? DCP (cyber) Sanjay Shinde told dna, ‘People should not fall prey to such tricks. There are cases where people have not applied for a job, yet they believe they have got an offer from a reputed firm and start depositing money in the given bank accounts.”

 

Dos and dont’s

l Protect yourself

l If you get an email from a known person’s email address asking you for money, verify it.

l Ignore emails from reputed firms offering you jobs unless you have applied for one

l Do not click on links in emails, text or pop-ups

l Do not upload your user name and password on any link sent in a mail or text even if it is from a known company website

l If you get an SMS or email from a bank asking you to upload your username or password, ignore it.

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