Nithin Kamath, the co-founder of zerodha, revealed on Wednesday some shocking details about a scam. Nithin Kamath shares a story of one man he knows who was recently scammed and lost more than 5 lakh rupees. The shocking details of the scam reveal that fraudsters are now enticing people by revealing short-term gains and then trapping them for extracting a larger amount.
It started with a response to a part-time job offer on WhatsApp. The first few tasks were to leave fake reviews for places like Peru, where they were able to find cheap, non-habitable places to eat. In a Twitter thread, Kamath said 30 k was transferred to the bank for the tasks completed.
After giving him 30,000, Zerodha's CEO said the scammers added the victim to a Telegram group and the next task was to trade on a mock crypto platform. Scammers allowed the victims to withdraw profits from the trade without investing any real money.
This wasn't Bitcoin or Ethereum, but random crypto tokens whose prices fraudsters could easily manipulate. To generate more profits, the group was asked to transfer real money to the bank. My friend nudged me to do so also, he said, adding that others in the group allegedly transferred my friend to do so.
I suspect that the risk didn't seem much since the money transferred was the 30k deposited through the platform. But greed took over, and more money was transferred, probably due to peer pressure from others in the group who claimed to have made big transfers and profits, the tweet said.
Nithin Kamath said that now the victim tried withdrawing the money but was told he needs certain minimum trades. Despite fearing to lose a large amount, the victim kept trading and with time deposited 5 lakh on the platform.
The platform offered a loan when the person said there was no more money to add. The person finally admitted to the spouse about the issue, and almost immediately realized it was a fraud. They spoke to the police for help, he said.
The account appeared to be a real cryptocurrency account, with account balance, ledger, P&L, etc. It was all fake, and everything on it was manipulated, including the telegram group. The crypto price movements were also manipulated to generate profits and spur greed at the beginning, Kamath said.
Kamath said police shared many such cases in which educated people lost money to these kinds of scams. He stressed that everyone is a target, saying there's no easy way to make a lot of money quickly.
The problem is being faced not only by individuals seeking jobs but also by companies that such perpetrators are impersonating. It is extremely unlikely that a business offering a job would ask a potential employee to make any payments or provide any documents on WhatsApp. It is always advisable to cross verify with the company purporting to offer the job to ensure that the offer is genuine. The contact details of most firms today are available on the websites of those companies, Rushad Irani, the principal associate of Pioneer Legal, said.