Online job fraud cases rising in the district

Thiruvananthapuram: There has been a steady rise in the number of people from the district being cheated of lakhs of rupees by fraudsters who offer online jobs. Even on Thursday two people filed complaints with the city cyber police about losing Rs 19 lakh and Rs 6 lakh respectively through online job fraud.As per the data released by the cyber police, 325 cases were registered in 2021 for cheating people offering online/offline jobs and in 2022 the number of people cheated was 278. However, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of cases in 2023 as till July 20 as many as 228 cases have been registered.Recently, Geethika (name changed), 30, of Ulloor and Sruthi Dev (name changed), 31, of Thirumala were cheated Rs 19,01,000 and Rs 6,66,189 respectively by job fraudsters. Geethika received a WhatsApp message on May 25, 2023, about an online job and she also received a call from an anonymous number explaining the job details. “I was interested as the job was very easy and the return was very attractive. They allowed me to do a trial and I received Rs 5,000 for the work. The accused won my trust through this and I was given other tasks as well. Later, the accused demanded money to do some other tasks and the return promised was lucrative. I transferred Rs 19 lakh to the accounts of the accused during various intervals with a hope of receiving it back in double. But I was cheated,” said Geethika.Whereas Sruthi Dev was offered a job at the Amazon website to increase its merchant transaction volume. To win her trust, she was asked to login to a bogus website of Amazon and the login account was credited some lakhs of rupees after the work was done. She was also told that the money will be credited in her account in seven days and a portion of the amount was also credited to win her trust. To continue the job, the accused demanded Rs 6 lakh and they disappeared as soon as the money was transferred. Cyber police have registered cases on their complaints and probe is on.