Greater Noida Man Duped of Rs 20L in WFH Scam Involving Google Maps Rating

Noida: A man from Greater Noida lost Rs 20.54 Lakh after he fell prey to work-from-home scam which required him to rate hotels on Google Maps in exchange of money. 

The cyber fraud victim has been identified as Sandeep Kumar, a resident of Chi-1 sector in Greater Noida. Meanwhile, the police at Cyber Crime police station in Noida Sector 36 registered an FIR under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation), and provisions of the Information Technology Act against an unidentified accused earlier this week.  

How Fraud Unfolded

The victim in his complaint told police that he received the work-from-home job offer via text on WhatsApp. After he replied to the message, he was added to a Telegram group which already had about 100 members.  

Thereafter, he started doing the task of rating hotels on Google Maps. The tasks soon demanded investments from him. He told police that while performing rating tasks, he came across some investment tasks too in which he invested Rs 50,000 but he was unable to withdraw it later. When he attempted to withdraw the amount again, the website asked him to pay an additional amount of Rs 5 lakh as tax. This way, he ended up investing Rs 20,54,464. 

When the website again asked him to pay Rs 5 lakh, he became suspicious and realised that he became a victim of fraud. He was unable to withdraw the total amount that he invested. The victim has alleged of receiving "death threats" from the conmen via Telegram and phone calls.