Last Update: May 15, 2023, 3:58 PM IST
Scammers Are Easy Finding Victims
The messaging app has been plagued by a number of scams over the past few months and this victim has fallen for their trap.
WhatsApp is used by billions and offers a lot of features but recently it has become a mecca for spam, be it through messages or calls. People have been warned about these scams and how they can be used to steal money.
Well, one such victim has recently come to the fore, who allegedly claims to have been scammed by one of these WhatsApp messages, and lost Rs 42 lakh in their dubious schemes. According to media reports, the victim is a software engineer, who works in an IT company in Gurgaon.
The police report claimed that the person had sent money to these scammers, who reached out to the victim and offered him an opportunity to earn easy money by liking YouTube videos and others. The complainant fell for the scheme, and decided to see where it took him and how much money he could make. Thereafter a woman named Divya contacted the victim and asked her to join a Telegram group to start this practice.
Now this is where the real scam started. The report mentions that the woman lured the engineer into investing over Rs 42 lakh in her Ponzi scheme, in return for which she was supposed to get Rs 69 lakh. The funny thing is that the victim actually fell for the offer and transferred money from his and his wife’s accounts, amounting to Rs 42,31,600, according to the police complaint.
So when did that person know it was a scam? He received a message on the Telegram group about receiving the money, in which he was told about making Rs 69 lakh from the money he had invested.
But the victim was unable to withdraw such a huge amount and was asking to send Rs 11,000 more, on which he got suspicious. Now, it seems that the police have registered an FIR, but in cases where the victim sends money with consent, the chances of getting the money back are slim, no matter how big the value.
We are stressing on the need to be aware of such WhatsApp scams which have become such a big problem that the Government of India had to intervene and ask Meta to fix the problem once and for all.
The messaging app says it plans to improve security settings for unknown callers, but as a user, you also need to be careful about how you deal with random contacts. And definitely don’t share personal details or transfer money.
