Srinagar- In the dimly lit room of her modest home, Sana (name changed) sat hunched over her laptop, desperately seeking a source of income. The glow of the screen illuminated the fatigue in her eyes, a reflection of months spent fruitlessly job hunting. Amid the sea of rejection emails, an enticing Facebook post promising a lucrative work-from-home opportunity caught her attention.
Excitement and hope filled her as she read about a seemingly straightforward data entry job. The promise of payment based on hours worked felt like a lifeline. The email instructed her to provide personal details—bank information, Aadhar, and PAN for registration.
Apprehension gnawed at Sana’s gut, but the allure of financial stability prevailed. Hesitantly, she keyed in her details and moments later, a link arrived in her inbox, urging her to complete the registration process. A quick tap and she was prompted to enter an OTP sent to her phone.
As Sana entered the code, a sinking feeling enveloped her. An invisible transaction had occurred in the digital realm, one that would soon unravel her sense of security. She checked her bank account, and the shock hit her like a punch to the gut—nearly Rs 30,000 vanished without a trace. A sense of betrayal overwhelmed Sana as she frantically scanned the transaction history. The cruel reality dawned on her—the promising job was nothing but a sophisticated scam. The perpetrators, faceless and cunning, had preyed on her desperation, leaving her not only jobless but also financially devastated.
Sana isn’t alone in falling victim to remote work scams, many others share similar experiences.
In June this year, Kashmir Observer reported on how work-from-home jobs provide a means of livelihood for Kashmiris amid job shortages. Although the growing popularity of remote work jobs post Covid-19 brought numerous opportunities for people seeking flexible employment from the comfort of their homes, it has blurred the boundaries between genuine job opportunities and dubious schemes.
Many realistic looking job sites with company logos convince job-seekers of their legitimacy. Scammers posing as human resource (HR) officials from well-known firms typically initiate scams using messages on social media platforms.
“I was tricked into participating in surveys in exchange for a substantial payment. But after completing the surveys, they requested me to pay a charge in order to collect the wages, or they won’t pay at all,” Wahid Ahmad, a job seeker from south Kashmir said.
Wishing anonymity, another victim said that she was offered a well-paid data entry task; but, after paying registration fees, she discovered that the job was fake and the material sent to her was riddled with errors. “Fortunately, the registration fee wasn’t much, but imagine how many others might have fallen prey to this,” she said.
Unemployment Woes
Job seekers have linked the problem to rising unemployment, which according to them makes them vulnerable to job scamming. “In the face of rising unemployment, the desperation for jobs has driven many of us to seek alternatives in the online sphere. The fact is that we have limited job opportunities and this renders us vulnerable to the pitfalls of job scamming,” Wahid said.
“One has to be extremely cautious when pursuing online job opportunities. However, the harsh reality remains that we have to make a living,” Wahid added.
By March 2023, Jammu and Kashmir had the third highest unemployment rate in India – 23.1 per cent, as per the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). In July of this year, the unemployment rate in the Union Territory was 18.3, according to Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai. Recent data reveals that around eight lakh unemployed individuals registered with the Labour and Employment Department.
Decoding The Scam
Sheikh Asif, a Srinagar-based IT specialist while talking about the tactics employed by some scammers said, “To win the confidence of their victims, these companies invite them to like and follow social media profiles and even proceed to send daily payments to the victims’ accounts, giving the impression that they are part of a genuine enterprise.”
“Subsequently, victims are added to a Telegram group where scammers establish sophisticated crypto trading platforms, urging individuals to invest and perform tasks to purportedly multiply their funds,” Asif said.
He added that, to further deceive victims, scammers create fake virtual wallets to give the impression that their money is safe and secure. Tragically, victims find themselves trapped in this scheme, sometimes losing their life savings.
According to Asif, scammers take advantage of the privacy features offered by platforms like Telegram. “They exploit these features, such as the ability to communicate in groups without disclosing their phone numbers. This anonymity grants them a certain level of protection and makes it difficult for law enforcement or individuals to trace their whereabouts or uncover their true identities.”
Furthermore, scammers often go to great lengths to cover their tracks by regularly deleting all their chats and account information.
The cyber wing of Jammu and Kashmir Police has registered a number of cases following complaints from victims of online frauds, having lost millions of rupees to scammers posing as online employers.
“Using group emailing tactics to reach out to a large audience has become an easy task for the scammers. They also disguise their identities and create phony emails and websites to lure the naive audience,” an official at the Cyber Wing of J&K police told Kashmir Observer.
He said the bank scams have become a common way for scammers to obtain the financial and personal data of victims. This is achieved by employing deceptive techniques to coax individuals into revealing confidential information, including passwords and bank account numbers.
Law enforcement agencies, he said, are helpless because they lack a magic wand that would help them foresee who the con artists will target next.
“How could we predict beforehand as to who may be the next target of the con artists, it’s for the people to think as to how they could protect themselves from scammers, who lure them in to be tricked,” he added.
He said that the police are looking into a number of instances pertaining to online employment frauds in Kashmir, asserting that while many of the cases have been solved, some are still being investigated.
In 2020, the J&K police’s cyber wing detained a shopkeeper from north Kashmir’s Baramulla for illegally using over fifteen Facebook profiles to defraud and trick women. Under the guise of giving the victims work, the accused has amassed millions of rupees through his vile and cunning schemes. In another similar case, a man from Anantnag, claiming to be a journalist, had created a fake website of a government department to dupe gullible job seekers.
Weeks ago, a major scam involving financial fraud worth crores surfaced in Kashmir valley after investors alleged that they were duped of their hard earned money by a private company.
Notably, various recruitment firms have stepped up efforts to educate people on social media about the signs of job scams and emphasized that they do not ask for money for jobs.
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