Over 50 fake call centres in Delhi-NCR duping job seekers

As Delhi and NCR has turned into a major educational hub, the region has also become the den of fraudsters duping job seekers of their hard-earned money on the pretext of getting them placed in multinational companies.

Investigations in this connection by Delhi Police and UPSTF reveal that at least 50 such call centers and job portals are running in the region. Similar frauds are being committed by some Nigerian nationals through phishing emails.

On March 25, UPSTF arrested two persons for allegedly running a fake call centre by taking data of job seekers from famous job portals, which unearthed the network of scamsters.

This case is just the tip of an iceberg and the police estimate that over 50 such fake call centers are operating in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon.

Victims of such fraud are spread across India who are initially asked to make a payment of Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 for job in IT giants and MNCs.

Recently, an FIR was registered by the Delhi police against unidentified fraudsters after a complaint by Tata that several job seekers were duped on the pretext of getting them placed in it.

The youths were duped to the tune of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 in the name of application and processing fee, police said.

While this case is being investigated by Economic Offence Wing of the Delhi Police, the wing formed to probe financial crimes had earlier unearthed a similar fraud in which gullible job seekers across the country were duped in the name of Maruti Suzuki India.

"Many of these gangs download resumes from job websites and then target people in faraway cities so that once duped they refrain from travelling to Delhi and registering complaints. We have also seen a case where people were duped in the name of getting them jobs in Delhi Metro Rail Corporation," said a senior official in EOW.

Explaining the modus-operandi, UPSTF's Additional Superintendent of Police Triveni Singh said, "Conmen first buy data of job seekers from famous job portals for Rs 25,000-Rs 40,000. Then they make a fake placement website which sounds similar to existing famous portals. They make calls to job seekers that their resume has been selected for a job in leading IT, banking and international companies and then demand money."

Data of most of the job portals are compromised as they are not following stringent process to keep their data secured, a senior police officer said. 

The police claim it becomes difficult to bust these gangs as their bank account, payment gateway and domain names are taken on fake identifies and many a times the servers are based abroad.

"Payment gate does not do physical verification of their client and allows payment against their commission. Similarly, domain registrar and server do not follow stringent rules and register customers on incomplete details," Singh said.

As per police claims, in order to sound professional, gangs hire English speaking call centre executives and rent an office space at a plush commercial building.

"Job seekers are communicated in proper English through internet calling so that their number becomes difficult to track. In the name of registration and interview they extract Rs

20,000-50,000 from a candidate. All mobile SIMs, mobile phones and bank account are activated on fake documents," Singh said.

According to cyber crime experts, most people in the scam are below 30 years of age and target fresh graduates who are desperate for jobs.

"Educational institutes have mushroomed in Delhi and NCR.

These scamsters target unemployed fresh graduates. Most of these conmen have worked with job portals and call centers so they know how to exploit the loopholes.

"The initial payment they charge from each candidate is low so a complainant hesitates to approach police and even cops do not take these cases seriously. But criminals keep minting money and after running the racket from one place for a few months they change their location and other details," Cyber Crime expert, Kislay Chaudhary said.