Noida man scammed of Rs 20.54 lakh, alleges death threat

A Greater Noida man was scammed after falling prey to a work-from-home job scam that involved rating hotels on Google Maps. Sandeep Kumar was scammed of Rs 20.54 lakh in January, reported PTI.

An FIR against unidentified persons was filed in the Cyber Crime Police Station in Noida Sector 36 earlier this week.

"The FIR has been registered under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation), and provisions of the Information Technology Act," the local police said as quoted by TOI.


In the complaint, Kumar said that he received numerous WhatsApp texts offering him work-from-home jobs that needed him to rate hotels on Google Maps for money. After replying to the texts, he was added to a Telegram group with around 100 members in it. He soon started rating hotels.

"I started rating the hotels etc. With these tasks, there were some investment tasks too where I invested Rs 50,000 first, but I couldn't withdraw the money from the website,” Kumar said. He was asked to pay Rs 5 lakh more when he tried to withdraw the money. He ended up ‘inventing’ Rs 20,54,464.

"They asked me to pay Rs 5 lakh more as tax to their account, where I got to know that I have been a victim of financial fraud. I am not able to withdraw my approximately Rs 20,54,464 invested money," Kumar said to the police.

Kumar also accused that he received death threats on the Telegram group and through calls from the fraudsters.

"I am getting death threats from these people on Telegram as well as on calls to defreeze the accounts," he said.